973.7L63 

mmim 

1929 
A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 


IDA  M.  TARBELL 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

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OF  THE 

uNiv£ftsrrr  or  ilunois 


cA  REPORTER  FOR 

LINCOLN 

STORY  OF  HENRY  E.  WING 

Soldier  ana  Newspaperman 

BY 

IDA  M.  TARBELL 


NEW  YORK 
THE  BOOK  LEAGUE  OF  AMERICA 

!929 


Copyright,  1926, 
By  THE  CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY. 

Copyright,  1927, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  printed. 

Published  February,  1927. 

Reprinted,   November,   1929. 

Special   edition   published   by   arrangement   with 
The  Macmillan  Company 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


T  IU 


FOREWORD 

The  story  of  the  adventures  of  Henry  E. 
Wing,  cub  reporter  for  the  New  York 
Tribune  in  the  last  year  of  the  Civil  War, 
is  based  on  letters  and  articles  by  Wing  him- 
self, supplemented  by  the  author's  many  con- 
versations with  him  in  the  last  year  of  his 
fc  life.  The  story  treatment  has  altered  no 
fact,  stretched  no  point,  added  no  artificial 
evidence  to  Henry  Wing's  own  stirring  ac- 
counts of  his  experiences  or  of  his  close  rela- 
?  tions  with  Abraham  Lincoln.  So  far  as  pos- 
sible, the  historical  facts  have  been  verified. 

Before  the  narrative  was  ready  for  pub- 
lication, Mr.  Wing  died,  at  his  home  near 
Bethel,  Conn. — a  man  of  85  years — to  the 
last  clear  in  mind  and  serene  and  cheerful  in 
spirit. 

Ida  M.  Tarbell. 


,  833860 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     The  Lost  Army 1 

II     News  Gathering  for  Lincoln  .        £9 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    LOST    ARMY 

It  was  the  loveliest  of  Washington  May- 
days, a  Friday — warm,  with  a  haze  that 
softened  to  beauty  war-worn  buildings,  neg- 
lected trees,  untrimmed  shrubbery.  For 
three  years  now  the  city  had  been  the  pivot 
on  which  swung  great  armies  and  great  poli- 
tics. There  had  been  no  time,  money,  men  to 
cut  the  grass,  to  paint  and  clean,  to  finish 
work  begun  in  years  of  peace.  The  very 
cranes  still  swung  from  the  unfinished  dome 
of  the  capitol  as  they  had  swung  when  Sum- 
ter fell  and  North  and  South  took  to  battle. 

The  magic  of  sun  and  air  had  transformed 
outward  neglect  and  untidiness,  but  it  had 
failed  to  soften  a  line  of  the  hard,  black 
anxiety  which  enveloped  responsible,  offi- 
cial Washington,  threatening,  if  not  soon 
relieved,  to  become  panic. 

[l] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

Nothing  could  have  more  thoroughly  ex- 
pressed the  depth  of  alarm  in  the  mind  of 
the  Administration  than  the  figure  of  Presi- 
dent Lincoln  as  in  the  golden  twilight  he 
came  out  of  the  White  House  and  with  bent 
head  made  his  way  to  the  War  Department. 
The  friendly  passers-by  along  the  Avenue 
who  noted  him  shook  their  heads  at  his  droop- 
ing shoulders  and  slow,  despairing  walk.  The 
unfriendly — and  there  were  always  those  who 
were  unfriendly  going  up  and  down  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  in  those  days — cast  looks 
of  hate,  verging  on  exultation.  In  their 
hearts  they  were  saying:  "Another  twenty- 
four  hours  and  Lee  will  be  here!" 

There  was  reason  enough  for  the  Presi- 
dent's bent  head  and  slow  walk.  For  nearly 
three  days  now  there  had  been  no  word  from 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  It  was  as  if  it 
had  dropped  into  an  abyss — the  silence  was 
inexplicable,  terrifying. 

They  knew  that  at  midnight  of  Tuesday 
Grant  had  started  his  army  of  veterans  from 
Culpepper,  only  some  sixty  miles  away,  on 
what  they  were  daring  to  hope,  in  spite  of 
three  years  of  repeated  efforts  and  failures, 
would  be  the  final  move  on  Richmond.  He 
had  moved  across  the  "Rapid  Anna" — that 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

they  knew.  But  what  had  to  be  done  all  day 
Wednesday?  All  day  Thursday?  And  what 
was  he  doing  today  ?  How  could  it  be  that  an 
army  of  122,000  men,  with  an  open  country 
and  an  open  river  between  it  and  Wash- 
ington, could  be  lost? 

"Where  was  the  army?"  men  had  begun 
to  ask  on  Wednesday.  "Why  was  there  no 
news?"  And  through  Thursday  the  tension, 
the  alarm,  the  despairing  rumors  grew  with 
every  hour.  In  the  City  of  New  York  ex- 
tras announced  that  Burnside  and  his  corps 
had  been  beaten  and  destroyed.  But,  if 
that  were  true,  Washington  knew  nothing 
of  it. 

Men  could  not  go  about  their  work.  Con- 
gress fumed  and  fretted.  In  the  Depart- 
ments the  clerks  gathered  in  little  groups, 
looking  from  their  windows  towards  the  Po- 
tomac and  Arlington  as  if  expecting  to  see 
a  cloud  of  gray  coats  swarming  upon  them. 

All  day  Thursday,  all  night  Thursday,  all 
day  Friday,  Congressmen  and  cabinet  offi- 
cers had  come  and  gone,  come  and  gone  to 
and  from  the  White  House,  seeking  what 
comfort  they  could  from  the  President.  And 
he — well,  he  had  staked  everything  on  Grant. 
And  now  Grant  had  disappeared. 

[3] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

His  mind  was  heavy  with  foreboding  as  he 
followed  the  graveled  path  from  the  White 
House  to  his  own  particular  chair  in  the  tele- 
graph office  of  the  War  Department.  The 
boys  all  knew  him  there.  For  three  years 
a  succession  of  them  had  watched  for  his 
almost  daily  visit  and  all  their  lives  there- 
after they  were  to  tell  how,  pulling  open  a 
drawer  where  the  yellow  tissue  telegrams  of 
the  day  awaited  him,  he  would  go  over  them 
— sometimes  one  long  leg  curled  over  the 
chair,  sometimes  both  long  legs  propped  on 
the  desk — how  he  would  ponder  as  he  read, 
and  now  and  then  rise  and  go  to  the  military 
map  on  the  wall,  tracing  positions  with  his 
long  finger,  visualizing  the  movements  re- 
ported— how  sometimes  he  would  stop  and 
comment,  tell  a  story. 

They  loved  his  coming,  these  young  tele- 
graph operators;  but  this  day  their  hearts 
were  heavy  for  him — they  had  no  news.  The 
only  thing  that  lay  in  his  drawer  was  a  tele- 
gram from  Grant,  three  days  old.  It  had 
come  in  early  in  the  afternoon  of  Tuesday: 
"The  crossing  of  the  Rapidan  effected. 
Forty-eight  hours  now  will  demonstrate 
whether  the  enemy  intends  giving  battle 
this  side  of  Richmond." 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

The  forty-eight  hours  were  long  past — 
and  nobody  knew  whether  the  enemy  had 
given  battle  or  not. 

"Nothing,  Mr.  President,"  the  operator  at 
the  desk  told  him.  "Nothing  that  amounts 
to  anything.  A  man  came  in  to  Union  Mills 
a  little  while  ago,  claiming  he  had  left  the 
army  early  this  morning.  He  wanted  to  talk 
to  Mr.  Dana,  but  he  was  not  here.  Then  he 
asked  to  send  a  telegram  to  the  Tribune. 
Secretary  Stanton  refused  to  let  us  use  the 
wire  for  a  newspaper  and  demanded  the  mes- 
sage. The  fellow  said  he  would  not  give  it 
unless  we  first  sent  a  dispatch  to  his  paper. 
The  Secretary  says  he  is  a  spy,  and  has 
ordered  him  shot  in  the  morning." 

A  change  came  over  the  President's  face 
as  lie  listened.  He  sat  straighter;  his  eyes 
lost  their  dull  look.  "Ordered  him  shot?"  he 
said. 

"Yes,  Mr.  President." 

"He  is  at  Union  Mills?" 

"Yes." 

"Ask  him  if  he  will  talk  with  the 
President." 

Union  Mills  was  a  little  Virginia  settle- 
ment, twenty  miles  or  so  from  Washington, 
on  the  military  road  to  Culpepper.     A  gov- 

[*] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

ernment  telegraph  station,  established  there 
early  in  the  war,  was  still  in  operation.  It 
was  not  much  to  look  at — this  station — a 
small  room,  used  only  by  the  operator  and 
those  who  came  and  went.  But  now  there  was 
an  extra  occupant. 

On  a  cot  at  the  side  of  the  room  was 
stretched  a  disreputable  and  suspicious- 
looking  figure.  A  slight  figure — a  boy  you 
would  say.  He  could  not  have  weighed  more 
than  130  pounds.  He  was  clad  in  the  rough 
butternut  garb  of  a  Virginia  plantation 
hand,  heavy  brogans  on  his  feet,  the  bottoms 
of  his  trousers  tied  over  their  tops  with 
hempen  cord.  He  wore  a  faded  cap,  he  was 
unshaven  and  from  head  to  foot  plastered 
with  red  Virginia  mud.  If  you  had  looked 
you  would  have  seen  that  two  fingers  were 
gone  from  his  left  hand. 

He  lay  quiet  enough.  No  one  could  have 
imagined  from  his  despairing  relaxation  the 
turmoil  of  disappointment  and  rage  inside 
his  heart  and  head.  He  was  sentenced  to  be 
shot  in  the  morning — sentenced  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  War,  whom  he  heartily  hated.  But 
that  was  not  what  enraged  him.  His  wrath 
was  because  he,  the  first  man  to  get  through 
from   the   army   with   news,   had   not   been 

[6] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

allowed  to  send  a  dispatch  to  his  paper,  his 
beloved  Tribune. 

Here  he  was  with  the  scoop  of  the  war,  and 
the  Secretary  had  refused  to  let  him  use  the 
wire — refused  even  though  he  promised  to 
give  the  Secretary,  when  the  dispatch  was 
sent,  all  that  he  knew — refused  and  ordered 
him  to  be  shot  as  a  spy. 

Well,  he  would  be  shot  before  he  would 
give  Stanton  a  word.  It  didn't  belong  to 
Stanton — he  was  not  his  man;  he  was  the 
Tribune's  man.  And  Stanton  was  a  bully, 
anyway.  Had  not  Stanton  said  that  no 
newspaper  men  should  be  allowed  with  the 
army?  And  had  he  not  had  to  run  away 
and  sneak  in?  No,  he'd  die,  but  he  would 
never  give  that  man  the  satisfaction  of  hav- 
ing news  that  belonged  to  his  paper.  And 
so  he  lay  quietly,  storming  within. 

He  did  not  understand  telegraphy — this 
young  boy;  but  lying  there,  absorbed  in  his 
thoughts,  he  suddenly  was  conscious  that  the 
ticking  instrument  was  calling  for  him — 
Wing  —  Henry  Wing  —  Henry  Wing  — 
Henry  E.  Wing,  it  said. 

All  his  life  he  had  had  hunches.  He  knew 
there  were  things  that  men  did  not  see  with 
their  eyes  and  feel  with  their  hands.     That 

[7] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

instrument  was  asking  for  him,  and  he  sat 
upright.  And  as  he  sat  up  the  operator 
said:  "The  President  wants  to  know  if  you 
will  talk  with  him.  He  wants  to  know  if  it 
is  true  that  you  have  come  from  the  army." 

"Tell  him,  yes." 

"He  wants  to  know  if  you  will  tell  him 
what  news  you  bring." 

"Tell  him  if  he  will  first  send  one  hundred 
words  to  the  Tribune,  I  will  tell  him." 

The  answer  came  back,  "Write  your  hun- 
dred words  and  we  will  send  it  at  once." 

And  so  he  wrote,  scribbling  fast  the  words 
of  his  message. 

Back  in  Washington  the  revived  Presi- 
dent received  the  message  at  his  desk,  and 
he  read  between  the  lines  the  truth:  here 
was  a  spirited  young  correspondent,  who, 
caring  first  for  his  trust,  resented  the  arbi- 
trary decision  of  his  great  Secretary  of  War. 
He  read  it  as  if  it  were  all  written  there  be- 
fore him.  His  eyes  twinkled,  his  lips  parted 
into  something  like  a  smile — "Wasn't  that 
like  Stanton?"  and  "Wasn't  it  like  a  boy?" 

He  did  not  wait  for  consultation.  He 
ordered  that  the  message  should  go,  not  only 
to  the  Tribune  but  to  the  country,  and  again 
questioned  Henry.     "If  I  send  an  engine  for 

[8] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

you,  will  you  come  to  Washington?"  And 
Henry  Wing,  back  in  Union  Mills,  was  good 
enough  to  say  "Yes." 

An  hour  later  a  little  military  train  was 
on  its  way  to  Union  Mills,  carrying  in  its 
rickety  passenger  car  Charles  A.  Dana,  first 
Assistant  Secretary  of  War,  with  a  good 
sized  escort.  Dana  was  to  see  Wing,  and  if 
possible  go  on  to  the  Army.  The  train  was 
to  bring  the  young  correspondent  back  to 
Washington. 

Between  one  and  two  o'clock  of  Saturday 
morning,  May  7,  the  train  came  into  the 
capital  on  its  return  trip,  and  Wing,  un- 
washed, unbrushed,  but  entirely  uncon- 
scious of  such  minutiae,  stepped  into  a  wait- 
ing carriage  and  was  driven  to  the  White 
House. 

The  cabinet  awaited  him — Mr.  Lincoln, 
upright  at  his  desk,  watching  the  door, 
the  Secretaries  grouped  about — Seward, 
Stanton,  Wells,  Chase — tired  and  anxious 
men — men  who  all  day  had  drifted  from  De- 
partment to  White  House,  from  White  House 
to  their  homes,  only  again  to  make  the  round. 
In  the  dull  light  of  the  shabby  room  they 
looked  sallow,  old,  hopeless.  Their  many 
hours  of  doubt  and  growing  anxiety  which 

[9] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

they  had  to  endure,  the  country's  rising  tide 
of  angry  blame,  that  sense  of  impotence 
which  the  night  brings,  had  taken  away  all 
official  dignity.  They  looked  just  what  they 
were — wretched  human  beings  entrusted  with 
vast  responsibility,  come  to  the  moment  when 
they  were  conscious  of  their  own  powerless- 
ness. 

The  messenger  for  whom  they  were  watch- 
ing came  in.  They  were  used  to  strange 
figures,  these  men,  but  scarcely  to  the  dirt 
and  rags  of  Henry  Wing.  Henry's  first 
consciousness  of  his  condition  came  at  the 
moment  when  he  saw  the  look  of  dismay  that 
crossed  the  face  of  the  President.  But  it 
was  only  for  a  moment — the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  Gideon  Welles,  had  recognized  him  as 
a  constituent,  and  rising  said,  "You  are 
Henry  Wing  from  Litchfield?"  And  so  he 
was  introduced. 

"What  had  he  to  tell  them,"  Mr.  Lincoln 
asked.  "When  and  where  had  he  left 
Grant?" 

Sitting  in  the  dimly  lighted  room,  with  the 
whole  Administration  of  the  United  States 
around  him,  he  told  his  story,  rising  to  point 
out  now  and  then  on  the  big  military  map 
which    hung    on    the    wall    the    movements 

[10] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

of  Grant's  army  up  to  the  time  he  had 
left. 

What  he  told  them  was  but  little  more 
than  he  had  put  into  his  message.  It  had 
been  midnight  on  Tuesday  that  they  had 
moved  out  from  Culpepper — the  whole  army 
of  122,000  (it  was  now  Saturday  morn- 
ing). They  were  going  after  Lee — that 
everybody  knew.  To  get  at  him  in  his  com- 
fortable winter  quarters  they  must  cross  the 
Rapidan,  a  nasty  stream  with  only  three 
fords.  He,  Henry,  was  with  the  second 
corps,  Hancock's.  They  had  done  well  and 
passed  out  of  the  tangle  into  the  open  coun- 
try near  Chancellorsville — a  good  place  for 
a  battle.  They  had  entrenched  and  were  ex- 
pecting the  other  corps  to  come  up. — War- 
ren's and  Sedgwick's. 

Nobody  had  thought  of  a  battle  until  the 
whole  army  was  through  the  Wilderness — 
that  is,  nobody  on  the  Union  side.  Nobody 
but  Lee.  He  had  come  out  of  his  entrench- 
ments and  attacked  them  Thursday  morning, 
with  half  the  Union  army  still  bottled  up  in 
the  Wilderness. 

The  other  half  had  fought  all  day  and  at 
night  when  nobody  knew  quite  how  the 
battle  had  gone.    At  headquarters  they  only 

[11  J 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

knew  that  the  whole  army  was  still  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Rapidan  and  that  General 
Grant  had  ordered  an  attack  the  next 
morning, 

"Lee  was  still  in  position?"  they  asked 
him. 

"Yes,  he  was  still  in  position." 

"And  when  did  you  leave?" 

"Four  o'clock  Friday  morning." 

"Fighting  had  not  begun?" 

"No,  fighting  had  not  begun." 

"Then  you  know  nothing  of  what  has  hap- 
pened in  the  last  twenty-four  hours?" 

"No." 

Henry  Wing  was  conscious  of  the  inade- 
quacy of  his  news.  It  was  not  what  had 
happened  Thursday  that  they  wanted  to 
know  now,  but  what  had  happened  Friday. 
And  why  now,  Saturday  morning,  they  still 
had  no  news.  It  was  almost  as  if  they  put 
him  aside  as  they  rose  one  by  one,  said, 
"Good  night,  Mr.  President,"  and  left  the 
room.  The  President  himself  seemed  so  over- 
whelmed with  uncertainty  that  he  was 
scarcely  conscious  that  Henry  Wing  had 
lingered  behind. 

"You  wanted  to  speak  to  me?"  said  Mr. 
Lincoln. 

[12] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

"Yes,  Mr.  President.  I  have  a  message 
for  you — a  message  from  General  Grant. 
He  told  me  I  was  to  give  it  to  you  when  you 
were  alone." 

In  an  instant  the  President  was  all  aware- 
ness, intent — "Something  from  Grant  to 
me?" 

"Yes,"  blurted  out  Henry.  "He  told  me 
I  was  to  tell  you,  Mr.  President,  that  there 
would  be  no  turning  back." 

The  harried  man  had  waited  long — three 
years — for  such  a  word — the  one  word  that 
could  have  brought  him  help  in  his  despair; 
and  his  long  arm  swept  around  and  gathered 
the  boy  to  him,  and  bending  over  he  pressed 
a  kiss  on  his  cheek.  "Come  and  tell  me 
about  it,"  he  said. 

They  sat  down,  and  suddenly  all  of 
Henry's  journalistic  discretion  was  gone. 
Here  was  one  who  had  the  right  to  know,  and 
so  he  told  him  of  the  horrors  and  uncertain- 
ties of  that  day  in  the  Wilderness — of  men 
fighting  without  knowing  where  they  were  go- 
ing, fighting  in  groups  not  masses ;  of  Han- 
cock left  without  support ;  of  Warren's  over- 
caution,  bottling  up  the  troops  that  Hancock 
had  expected  to  support  him ;  of  a  day  gone 
wrong  from  start  to  finish. 

[13] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

He  told  how,  when  night  had  come  and 
commanders  and  correspondents  had  gath- 
ered at  headquarters,  there  had  been  angry 
charges,  one  officer  accusing  another;  of 
Meade's  decision  that  they  should  fall  back 
north  of  the  river,  reestablish  their  lines,  and 
try  again  later,  and  how  General  Grant  had 
come  in  with  his  quiet  but  final,  "No,  we  shall 
attack  again  in  the  morning." 

He  told  how,  when  at  four  o'clock  Friday 
morning  he  had  presented  himself  at  head- 
quarters and  announced  to  the  General  that 
he  was  carrying  out  news  to  his  paper,  Grant 
had  led  him  aside  and  looking  at  him  intently 
had  asked,  "You  think  you  can  get  to  Wash- 
ington?" He  had  no  doubt  of  it,  nor  did 
the  General's  question  arouse  doubt. 

"Then,"  said  the  General,  "if  you  do  see 
the  President,  see  him  alone  and  tell  him  that 
General  Grant  says  there  will  be  no  turning 
back." 

His  story  was  told.  It  was  four  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  the  President,  rising, 
said,  "It  is  time  for  you  to  get  to  bed,  Henry. 
You  look  as  if  you  needed  rest,  but  come 
to  see  me  tomorrow  afternoon."  And  Henry 
Wing,  who  had  not  had  more  than  three 
hours'  sleep  at  a  time  for  some  five  days  now, 

[14] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

stumbled  out  of  the  White  House,  down  to 
the  National  Hotel  where  he  kept  a  room,  and 
upstairs  to  throw  himself,  Virginia  mud  and 
all,  across  the  bed  and  fell  into  the  sleep  of 
utter  exhaustion. 

He  took  time  for  only  one  ceremony — to 
look  at  his  face  in  the  glass,  with  something 
like  awe,  and  to  pass  a  reverential  hand  over 
his  cheek.  Had  he  dreamed  it,  or  was  it  true 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States  had 
kissed  him,  there,  on  that  spot? 

Day  had  scarcely  broken  on  the  morning 
of  Saturday,  May  7,  before  the  streets  of 
Washington  were  ringing  with  the  cries  of 
newsboys.  Henry's  beat  had  got  through. 
Not  for  many  weeks  had  Washington  leaped 
from  its  bed  at  their  cry.  "News  from  the 
Army,"  was  what  they  said.  "Grant  found !" 
The  shouting  penetrated  a  room  where  across 
a  bed  a  dirty,  sprawling  figure  lay.  It  came 
like  a  call  to  duty:  "Henry  Wing!  Henry 
Wing !  This  is  your  news.  Your  work  is  not 
done;  you  must  see  the  Tribune." 

Henry  was  on  his  feet  in  an  instant,  throw- 
ing off  his  plantation  disguise,  pulling  on  his 
correspondent's  uniform,  dashing  down  and 
out.     It   was    hardly    six    o'clock   when   he 

Q15] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

reached  the  Tribune  office,  then  on  the  second 
floor  of  a  14th  Street  building  near  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue.  He  found  the  stairs 
blocked  with  excited  men,  men  whose  names 
he  knew — Senators,  department  chiefs — all 
pushing  their  way  in  and  questioning  one 
another  eagerly,  "Is  it  true!"  "What  is 
known  ?" 

Henry  wormed  his  way  up  the  stairs, 
through  the  wrestling  crowd,  into  the  room ; 
and  there,  on  top  of  a  table,  was  his  chief, 
Sam  Wilkeson,  declaring  excitedly  that  the 
news  was  a  fake,  that  Henry  Wing  had  not 
come  out,  that  somebody  was  deceiving  the 
country. 

"Here  I  am,  Mr.  Wilkeson!"  shouted 
Henry.  And  the  anxious  crowd,  stilled  for 
an  instant  by  the  cry,  looked ;  more  than  one 
of  them  recognized  Wing. 

Such  a  shout  as  went  up!  They  caught 
him  in  their  arms  and  passed  him  over  their 
heads  to  the  table  beside  his  chief ;  and  there, 
with  many  interruptions,  he  told  them  the 
truth :  he  had  left  Grant's  army  south  of  the 
Rapidan  at  four  o'clock  on  Friday  morning ; 
it  had  fought  all  day  Thursday;  Lee  still 
held  his  position ;  when  he  left,  Grant  was  to 
attack  again  in  the  morning;  he  had  been 

[16] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

all  day  getting  out;  when  he  reached  Union 
Hills  and  asked  for  Mr.  Dana  and  that  a 
message  be  sent  to  the  Tribune,  Stanton  had 
refused  him  the  lines  and  ordered  him  to  be 
shot  as  a  spy. 

Such  a  groan  as  went  up!  And  how  had 
he  escaped? 

"The  President  found  it  out  and  sent  a 
train  for  me,"  he  said  proudly. 

There  were  cheers  and  cheers.  Sam  Wil- 
keson  patted  him  on  the  back,  overwhelmed 
with  pride  that  one  of  his  staff  had  not  only 
achieved  the  biggest  scoop  in  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  war,  but  had  done  something 
dearer  }'et  to  the  newspaper  man's  heart, 
beaten  their  enemy,  Stanton,  and  the  crowd, 
unable  to  express  itself  better,  took  up 
a  collection,  passing  a  hatful  of  bills  to 
Henry. 

Having  thus  relieved  their  feelings  they 
slowly  dribbled  down  to  the  street  and  back 
to  their  several  breakfast  tables. 

"And  now,  Henry,"  said  Mr.  Wilkeson, 
"what  are  you  going  to  do?" 

And  Henry,  conscious  of  duty  fulfilled  and 
also  of  a  great  weariness,  said :  "If  you  don't 
mind,  Mr.  Wilkeson,  I  will  go  back  to  the 
hotel   and  get  some  sleep.     I  want  to  get 

[17] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

rested  because  the  President  has  asked  me  to 
come  and  see  him  this  afternoon." 

"And  I  will  go  with  you,"  said  his  chief. 

It  was  late  on  Saturday  afternoon  when 
Henry  Wing,  once  more  a  confident,  hand- 
some, almost  dapper  youth,  presented 
himself  at  the  White  House  and  was 
admitted  with  his  chief  to  the  President's 
office. 

"I  see  you've  cleaned  up,  Henry,"  said 
Mr.  Lincoln.  "What  are  you  going  to  do 
now?"  And  very  promptly  Henry  replied, 
"I  am  going  after  Jess." 

"Jess?"  said  the  President.  "Who  is 
Jess?" 

"My  horse.  I  left  him  tied  in  the  thicket 
down  near  Warrentown.  The  Confederates 
were  too  thick  for  me  to  get  through  with 
him  any  farther,  and  I  promised  him  to  go 
back.  I  never  break  a  promise  to  a  horse, 
Mr.  President." 

"You  had  to  leave  him?"  said  the  Presi- 
dent. "You  had  difficulty  in  getting  out? 
You  better  tell  me  about  it,  Henry." 

And  so  Henry  told  the  story  of  what 
had  happened  between  four  o'clock  Friday 
morning  and  ten  o'clock  that  night,  when 

[18] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

the   President   had    rescued   him    from    Mr. 
Stanton's  sentence. 

"It  was  this  way,  Mr.  President,"  he  said. 
"After  the  battle,  we  all  came  to  Grant's 
headquarters.  My  chief  said  somebody  must 
take  a  dispatch  to  the  Tribune.  Of  course 
the  older  men  could  not  do  it;  they  were 
needed.  I  was  only  the  cub,  and  I  knew  it 
was  up  to  me  to  try,  and  so  I  said  I  would 
go. 

"It  was  midnight  then,  and  I  went  around 
to  see  Jess.  Jess,  Mr.  Lincoln,  is  the  finest 
horse  in  the  army.  I  told  them  to  feed  him 
and  feed  him  well  at  three  o'clock,  and  that  I 
would  ride  out  at  four.  I  thought  maybe 
Jess  might  not  get  any  more  oats  until  we 
got  to  Washington,  and  it's  about  seventy- 
five  miles. 

"I  had  it  mapped  out  how  it  would  be 
easy  enough  to  get  through.  Over  near  Cul- 
pepper there  was  a  Union  man  I  knew.  I 
had  seen  him  only  a  couple  of  days  before. 
He  knew  every  road  and  path  between  the 
river  and  Washington.  I  was  counting  on 
him  to  give  me  directions.  I  did  not  realize 
that  as  soon  as  our  army  had  crossed  the 
Rapidan,  Lee's  scouts  and  Moseby's  men  had 
begun  to  come  in. 

[19] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

"I  knew  from  the  way  Jess  acted  as  soon 
as  we  were  across  the  river  that  it  was  none 
too  safe.  Jess  knows  things,  Mr.  Lincoln — 
knows  danger,  feels  it.  And  he  steals  around 
like  a  cat  when  things  are  not  safe.  That's 
the  way  he  acted  yesterday  morning.  It 
made  me  a  little  careful.  Still,  I  was  count- 
ing on  my  friend.  When  I  told  him  what  I 
wanted  he  called  me  a  fool.  Don't  you  know 
you  haven't  a  chance  in  the  world  to  get 
to  Washington  looking  like  that?  Don't 
you  know  that  the  woods  are  full  of  Confed- 
erates and  that  by  this  time  they  probably 
hold  half  the  stations  on  the  railroad?  You 
will  never  get  there  in  the  world  in  those 
clothes. 

"Well,  of  course,  I  had  on  the  Tribune 
clothes,  and,  you  know,  Mr.  Lincoln" — and 
Henry  looked  himself  over  complacently — 
"you  know  they  are  rather  conspicuous." 

They  certainly  were.  The  Tribune  took 
pride  in  having  its  correspondents  outshine 
those  of  other  papers.  Its  representatives 
wore  knickerbockers  of  the  finest  corduroy, 
jackets  of  buckskin,  high-topped  boots  of 
the  finest  leather,  conspicuous  gauntlets, 
broad  soft  hats — a  combination  most  becom- 
ing to  a  youth  as  handsome  as  Henry  Wing. 

[20] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

"  'They  would  spot  you  across  country,' 
my  friend  said.  'The  only  chance  of  your 
getting  there  is  to  go  as  a  Confederate  carry- 
ing news  to  Confederate  friends  in  Washing- 
ton, news  that  Lee  has  defeated  Grant,  that 
in  twenty-four  hours  he  will  be  on  his  way  to 
the  city.  That  is  all  that  will  get  you 
through  the  bands  that  will  dispute  your 
way.' 

"He  told  me  to  rip  off  my  clothes  and  he 
gave  me  what  j^ou  saw  me  in  last  night,  Mr. 
Lincoln.  I  guess  they  would  pass  me  any- 
where as  a  field  hand." 

"I  reckon  they  would,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln. 

"Well,  I  started  out,  but  a  few  miles  on, 
when,  sure  enough,  I  ran  plumb  into  a  troop 
of  Moseby's  men.  I  stopped  to  talk  and  told 
my  story  in  dialect.  There  was  great  hur- 
rahing, and  in  no  time  they  had  an  escort 
ready.  There  were  Yankees  still  in  the 
neighborhood,  they  said.  I  would  not  be 
safe.  And  so  I  started  out  with  Moseby's 
men  for  escort. 

"Things  would  have  gone  very  well  if  we 
had  not  ridden  right  into  Kelly's  Ford.  You 
have  heard  of  Kelly,  I  expect — everybody 
knows  there  isn't  a  more  bitter  secessionist  in 
Virginia.     Not  more  than  forty-eight  hours 

[21] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

before,  I  had  been  there  and  talked  with  him. 
So  I  told  the  escort  I  was  all  right,  that  they 
needn't  bother  any  further. 

"But  Kelly  was  too  quick.  He  recognized 
me  and  as  I  rode  up,  jumped  for  Jess'  bridle. 
Jess  was  too  quick  for  him.  He  gave  one 
great  bound  and  rushed  for  the  river — not 
the  ford  but  the  deep  water.  Jess  knows 
more  than  I  do  every  time. 

"They  fired  on  me  but  it  was  too  late.  I 
knew  now,  if  my  road  was  clear,  nothing 
could  stop  Jess  until  we  reached  Washington ; 
but  the  road  was  not  clear.  You  haven't  any 
idea  how  the  enemy  has  filled  it  up — cavalry, 
wagons,  scouts.  They  kept  holding  me  up, 
and,  though  I  got  by  every  time  by  telling 
a  story  that  set  them  hurrahing,  I  knew  that 
could  not  last,  that  I  must  leave  Jess  and 
take  to  the  railroad  ties. 

"You  see,  by  this  time  I  was  only  about 
thirty  miles  from  here,  and  I  thought  I  could 
make  it,  so  I  led  Jess  into  a  thicket  down 
around  Warrentown.  I  tied  him  loose, 
poured  out  all  the  oats  I  had,  put  my  arms 
around  his  neck  and  promised  to  come  back. 
That  is  what  I  want  to  do  now,  Mr.  Lincoln." 

"But  how  did  you  make  the  rest  of  the 
journey?" 

[22] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

"Pretty  well  until  I  reached  Manassas 
Junction,  where  I  found  the  enemy  strong. 
They  said  they  were  glad  qf  the  news,  but 
they  would  get  it  to  Washington  themselves ; 
I  needn't  go  on.  I  said,  'All  right,'  but 
when  it  began  to  be  dusk  I  crawled  out  and 
sneaked  up  the  track  to  Bull  Run  where  our 
people  are,  and  they  sent  me  to  Union  Mills. 

"At  Bull  Run  I  found  out  what  I  had  not 
guessed  before,  that  I  was  the  first  man  in 
from  the  army,  that  no  paper  had  had  any 
news,  that  even  Washington  had  no  news,  and 
that  the  whole  country  was  stirred  up  by  a 
rumor  that  Grant  was  defeated  and  Lee 
would  soon  be  in  Washington. 

"It  had  never  occurred  to  me  that  I  could 
not  get  through  some  word  to  Alexandria, 
but  when  I  tried  to  buy  a  horse,  no  one 
would  sell  me  one.  I  offered  $1,000  for  a 
hand-car  and  a  man  to  run  me  up,  but  they 
said  it  was  a  military  road  and  no  civilian 
could  be  accommodated. 

"You  can  imagine  how  I  felt — with  news 
like  that  and  no  way  to  get  it  to  the  Tribune 
before  anybody  else  had  it.  Then  I  had  an 
idea.  You  know  Mr.  Dana  is  an  old  Tribune 
man,  and  so  I  went  to  the  military  telegraph 
office  and  asked  them  to  telegraph  him  that 

[23] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

I  was  just  in  from  the  front,  that  I  had  left 
Grant  at  four  o'clock  that  morning,  and  that 
I  wanted  to  talk  to  him. 

"Well,  they  didn't  tell  Dana;  they  told 
Stanton.  You  know  what  happened,  Mr. 
Lincoln." 

"Yes,  I  know  what  happened.  And  now 
you  want  to  go  for  Jess!" 

"Yes,  I  must  go  for  Jess." 

"Well,  Henry,  I  think  we  owe  you  some- 
thing. I  will  have  to  help  you  about  that. 
I  don't  like  to  think  of  your  making  the  run 
you  did  yesterday  without  a  guard.  You 
must  remember  we  don't  know  what  has  hap- 
pened down  there  since  you  left.  If  you 
wish,  I  will  give  you  an  escort,  an  engine,  and 
a  car." 

There  was  no  happier  man  in  Washington 
that  night  than  Henry  Wing,  knowing  that 
the  next  morning  there  would  be  awaiting 
him  at  Alexandria  an  escort  to  take  him  to 
the  spot  where  he  had  hidden  his  beloved 
horse.  And  there  was  no  prouder  group  of 
men  in  Washington  than  the  newspaper  men 
who  gathered  about  him  and  patted  him  on 
the  back  and  feasted  him.  One  of  their  craft 
was  the  hero  of  the  hour. 

The  next  morning,  Sundajr,  May  8,  the 

[24] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

expedition  to  rescue  a  horse,  which  the 
President  of  the  United  States  had  prom- 
ised to  a  cub  reporter  of  the  New  York 
Tribune,  started  out  from  Alexandria.  It 
carried  a  battery  of  soldiers,  and  a 
box  car,  well  equipped  with  water  and 
oats. 

And  it  was  no  uneventful  journey.  The 
train  ran  safely  through  the  hostile  scouts 
at  Manassas  Junction  though  not  unchal- 
lenged, but  from  there  on  every  mile  of  the 
way  was  fought  for  until  finally  they  came  to 
the  point  where  Henry  thought  he  had  taken 
to  the  ties. 

Here  he  sneaked  from  the  train  to  hunt  his 
way  the  best  he  could  to  the  particular 
thicket  where  he  had  left  Jess.  He  had  a 
horrible  fear  that  he  might  mistake  the  road 
— thickets  were  so  alike.  There  was  a  grow- 
ing anxiety,  too,  as  to  what  might  have  hap- 
pened to  Jess  in  the  forty-eight  hours  since 
he  left  him.  Had  he  been  discovered  and 
shot  or  stolen?  Had  hunger  and  thirst 
driven  him  to  break  or  gnaw  away  his  halter, 
or  had  he  kept  his  post,  as  Henry  believed 
he  would  if  unmolested  ? 

His  anxiety  was  almost  unbearable  as  he 
crawled  out  from  the  underbrush  to  the  spot 

[25] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

where  he  calculated  he  had  left  Jess,  and 
raised  his  eyes  to  look. 

There  the  horse  stood — head  stretched  out, 
eyes  alert,  ears  forward,  legs  far  apart,  not 
a  muscle  moving,  not  a  sound — the  very  pic- 
ture of  intentness.  And  when  he  saw  Henry 
it  was  as  if  he  would  spring  to  meet  him,  for 
with  one  snap  of  his  white  teeth  he  bit  almost 
entirely  through  the  leather  strap  which  held 
him.  All  this  he  might  have  done  before, 
but,  no,  he  was  waiting  for  the  man.  The 
man  had  come.  Life  might  depend  on  an  in- 
stantaneous get-away  and  the  horse  himself 
cut  the  strap  that  there  might  be  no  delay, 
so  Henry  Wing  believed. 

With  tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks, 
the  youth  threw  his  arms  around  Jess'  neck, 
while  Jess  nuzzled  his  neck,  whinnying  softly 
his  delight. 

Quickly  and  quietly  they  came  out,  Henry 
leading  the  horse.  He  could  not  mount  an 
animal  that  for  forty-eight  hours  had  had 
little  food  and  no  drink.  But  there  was  a 
great  feast  when  that  box  car  was  reached — 
a  great  feast  and  a  great  petting  and  a  great 
rejoicing.  But  never  such  rejoicing  as  when 
that  night  Henry  Wing  rode  Jess  into  a 
comfortable  stall  in  a  Washington  stable. 

[26] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

But  the  story  was  not  over.  Henry  Wing 
had  had  his  great  day,  and  while  he  was  gone 
that  Sunday  in  his  search  for  the  horse,  the 
newspaper  men  of  Washington,  Whitelaw 
Reid  at  their  head,  Uriah  Painter,  Sam  Wil- 
keson,  all  the  big  ones,  had  planned  that  the 
next  day  should  be  Jess's.  The  Tribune  was 
to  give  Jess  to  Henry  as  his  own  property. 
The  men  had  taken  up  a  collection  and  had 
bought  him  the  finest  saddle  and  bridle  the 
town  afforded,  and  they  had  arranged  that  at 
ten  o'clock  Monday  morning  dignitaries  of 
the  cabinet,  led  by  Lincoln  himself,  should 
meet  on  the  White  House  lawn  and  inspect 
the  horse,  for  now  Jess  was  the  hero  of  the 
hour. 

That  program  was  fulfilled.  The  recep- 
tion was  held,  and  to  cap  its  climax,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln asked  the  privilege  of  mounting  and  rid- 
ing Jess.  If  ever  a  boy's  cup  of  pride  and 
happiness  was  full,  it  was  then.  Indeed,  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  find  a  happier  group 
than  was  gathered  in  Washington  around 
that  house  the  morning  of  Monday,  May  9, 
for  news  was  through  now  officially  from 
Grant.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  not 
turned  back;  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was 
going  forward.     Possibly  at  no  hour  in  all 

[27] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

these  tormented  three  years  had  Abraham 
Lincoln  felt  greater  relief.  "And  now,"  he 
said  to  Henry  as  he  dismounted  from  Jess, 
"you  go  back  to  Grant?" 

"Yes,  Mr.  Lincoln,  I  go  back." 

"Good,"  said  the  President.  "You  will 
be  coming  to  Washington  sometimes,  and  re- 
member this,  that  when  you  do  I  want  you 
always  to  come  and  see  me.  It  is  an  order. 
You  are  to  tell  me  all  you  hear  and  see." 


[28] 


CHAPTER  II 

NEWS  GATHERING  FOR  LINCOLN 

We  have  never  had  a  President  of  the 
United  States  as  opinion-wise  as  Abraham 
Lincoln.  His  eyes  and  ears  were  always 
strained  to  catch  the  winds  of  people's  think- 
ing, whatever  their  volume,  whatever  way 
they  blew.  There  were  the  big  party  winds  of 
the  "one-half"  and  the  "other  half"  and  the 
tertium  quid;  there  were  the  daily,  to  be  ex- 
pected squalls  from  Congress,  often  nasty, 
treacherous  squalls ;  there  were  the  breezes  in 
his  cabinet,  blowing  hot  and  cold,  and  some- 
times treacherous  too.  He  had  rare  skill  in 
picking  them  up  as  they  started,  and  gaug- 
ing their  strength  and  velocity. 

By  the  fourth  summer  of  his  Great  Trial, 
1864,  he  was  fairly  confident  that  he  knew 
the  mind  of  the  North;  but  of  one  crucial 
factor  in  his  problem  he  was  uncertain.  That 
was  the  mind  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
He  had  given  it  a  new  commander,  Grant — 

[29] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

brought  him  from  the  West  and  placed  him 
over  officers  whom  the  seasoned  troops  of  the 
East  understood  and  trusted.  Grant's  first 
undertaking  had  been  a  failure,  with  fright- 
ful loss.  There  was  murmuring  in  the  ranks. 
Would  they  hold?    How  was  he  to  find  out? 

True,  all  officialdom  was  at  his  elbow,  pour- 
ing numbers,  movements,  names  into  his  ears. 
True,  officers,  agents,  politicians  came  day 
and  night  with  the  stories  of  their  exploits, 
grievances,  ambitions,  opinions,  but  it  was 
of  authorities,  management,  they  talked,  not 
of  soldiers,  the  men  in  the  ranks ;  and  in  his 
judgment  they  were  the  crux  of  the  issue 
at  that  moment.  And  he  had  no  report  of 
their  thinking  that  satisfied  him.  What  he 
wanted  was  to  listen  to  the  wind  that  swayed 
the  forest  of  men  in  arms,  hear  it  in  the  talk 
at  the  camp  fire,  in  the  songs  on  the  march, 
in  the  cries  of  the  battlefield,  in  the  moans  of 
the  wounded  and  dying.  If  he  could  only 
be  one  of  them  for  a  week  he  would  know,  but 
that  was  impossible;  and  one  who  had  ears 
to  hear  the  truth  and  the  tongue  to  speak 
it  did  not  often  come  his  way.  He  would 
know  him,  if  and  when  he  should  come,  for 
in  three  years  of  war  his  sense  of  a  man's 
fitness  for  a  purpose,  always  strong,  had  been 

[30] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

quickened  and  deepened  until  it  came  to  be 
almost  as  unconscious  as  it  was  unerring. 

It  was  this  sense  that  told  him  in  May, 
1864,  when  he  was  feeling  keenly  the  need 
of  a  personal  news  gatherer  in  the  army, 
that  Henry  Wing  was  the  one  for  whom  he 
was  looking;  he  had  no  doubt  about  it;  and 
hence  it  was  that  when  the  youth  was  about 
to  return  to  his  post  at  Grant's  headquar- 
ters he  had  said:  "You  are  to  see  me  when- 
ever you  come  to  Washington,  Henry." 

Impressed  as  Henry  Wing  was  by  the 
President's  words,  he  had  no  real  conception 
of  what  was  behind  them.  How  could  he 
know  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  new  service  of 
his  own,  into  which  was  admitted  a  hundred 
matters  about  men  and  things  which  no  news- 
paper would  consider,  no  official  would  regard 
as  of  moment.  Certain  it  is,  too,  that  neither 
Mr.  Lincoln  nor  he  could  have  dreamed  that 
the  "order"  was  to  be  the  starting  point  of 
a  comradeship  which  was  to  last  as  long  as 
the  President  lived  and  to  continue  as  Henry 
Wing's  most  precious  recollection  up  to  his 
death  in   1925. 

If  Mr.  Lincoln  had  known  anything  of  the 
past  of  the  youth  whom  he  had  drafted  into 
his  service  it  would  only  have  strengthened 

[31] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

his  conviction  that  he  could  get  something-— 
possibly  much — from  him.  But  at  the  mo- 
ment he  did  not  even  know  that  Henry  Wing 
had  been  a  soldier — newspaper  correspon- 
dents had  been  so  rarely  in  the  ranks.  The 
boy,  in  fact,  was  a  type  of  the  sturdy  youth 
of  the  period  very  dear  to  Abraham  Lincoln 
— self-directing,  self-educating  youth,  which, 
regardless  of  age,  flocked  by  the  thousands 
in  the  Northern  army  when  the  call  came  for 
volunteers.  Connecticut  was  Henry  Wing's 
state,  his  father  a  minister,  the  Reverend 
Ebenezer  Wing — "a  good  man,"  his  son  de- 
scribed him  in  later  years,  "and  harsh  like 
his  name."  Truth  was,  there  was  never  sym- 
pathy and  understanding  between  Ebenezer 
Wing  and  his  son.  "He  thought  I  was  not  a 
good  boy,"  I  have  heard  the  son  say.  "He 
never  liked  me;  my  mother  liked  me  better. 
Mother  was  beautiful  and  gentle  and  wise. 
She  could  do  anything  with  him.  He  loved 
her,  loved  her  so  hard  it  hurt  him.  I  think 
he  could  not  bear  to  have  her  care  so  much 
for  me  as  she  did.  When  I  was  a  little  shaver 
I  used  to  wish  sometimes  that  he  would  get 
drunk  and  be  jolly  and  sing  like  the  fathers 
of  some  other  boys  I  knew.  Of  course,  I 
never  told  him  that.  He  got  so  he  couldn't 
[32  1 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

stand  mother  and  me  being  so  happy;  he 
thought  it  was  wicked.  When  I  was  fifteen 
he  turned  me  out  to  earn  my  living.  He  said 
nothing  but  work  would  ever  make  a  man 
of  me." 

Possibly  the  Reverend  Ebenezer's  theory 
was  wiser  than  it  sounds.  The  boy  took  hold 
with  a  will — taught  and  studied,  term  about, 
and  finally  returned  to  Connecticut  to  take 
up  the  law,  paying  his  way  by  selling  slate 
roofs  which  he  put  on  mornings  and  nights. 
And  thus  the  war  found  him. 

One  disturbing  factor  in  the  relations  of 
Ebenezer  Wing  and  his  son  had  been  a  life- 
long quarrel  over  slavery.  The  man  was  an 
Abolitionist  of  the  most  bitter  and  intolerant 
type.  Henry  Wing  was  temperamentally  in- 
capable of  bitterness  and  intolerance  on  any 
subject.  Moreover,  his  mother  had  taught 
on  Southern  plantations  before  her  marriage 
and  he  had  listened  from  childhood  to  her 
stories  of  life  there.  What  his  father  said 
was  not  true,  he  had  concluded.  The  black 
man  was  better  off  than  if  he  were  free. 

The  boy's  open  rejection  of  his  opinion  was 
unbearable  to  Ebenezer  Wing,  a  defiance  of 
the  divine  command,  "Honor  thy  father." 
That   his   wife   shared   the   boy's    moderate 

[38] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

view — had,  in  fact,  inspired  it — seemed  not 
to  affect  him.  She  was  a  woman ;  her  opinion 
did  not  count;  moreover,  she  was  the  woman 
he  loved. 

Henry's  complacent  conclusion  about 
slavery  received  its  first  rude  jolt  after  he 
had  gone  on  his  own,  become  a  teacher  in 
a  seminary  in  Vermont.  On  the  campus 
of  the  institution  a  young  negro  boy  was 
employed.  Henry  liked  him  and  was  kind 
to  him. 

One  day  this  boy  came  to  him,  evidently 
in  great  trouble.  "Professor,  I  heard  you 
say  that  it  was  foolish  for  a  black  man  to  run 
away." 

"Yes,"  Henry  said. 

"And  I  heard  you  say  that  if  you  knew  of 
a  runaway  slave  you  would  help  his  master  to 
catch  him." 

Henry  hesitated.  "But — yes,"  he  said ;  "I 
would." 

"Will  you?"  And  then  Henry  at  last 
knew  that  here  was  a  runaway;  the  boy's 
master  was  after  him.    No,  he  would  not. 

"Jake,"  he  whispered,  "they  shall  not  get 
you." 

And  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
Jake's   master   was   only  four  hours   away, 

[34] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

they  did  not  get  him,  for  it  was  Henry's 
quick  wit  and  savings  that  put  him  into 
Canada. 

But  his  action  disturbed  him.  He  was  a 
lawbreaker,  and  to  his  consternation  he  knew 
he  would  do  the  same  thing  again.  And  yet 
in  1860  he  refused  to  vote  for  Lincoln — per- 
haps because  so  his  father  voted.  And  then 
came  Sumter — the  call  for  troops.  This  had 
nothing  to  do  with  slavery ;  it  was  the  Union 
which  must  be  defended.  He  would  pay  his 
debts  as  quickly  as  he  could,  and  enlist.  In 
the  meantime  he  made  speeches  for  the  Union. 
He  was  eloquent,  and  the  news  of  his  elo- 
quence spread.  He  was  invited  to  make  the 
address  at  a  celebration  given  in  the  town 
where  his  father  preached. 

"It  was  a  big  affair,"  he  would  tell  you, 
reminiscing,  "and  they  met  me  at  the  station 
with  a  chariot  and  four  white  horses.  I 
talked  two  hours,  explaining  that  it  was  not 
a  war  to  free  slaves,  but  one  to  save  the 
Union. 

"Then  came  the  banquet  out-of-doors 
with  speeches,  my  father's  the  first.  When 
he  got  up  he  shouted,  'Who  would  have 
thought  that  Ebenezer  Wing  would  have 
come  to  this  disgrace — to  be  compelled  to 

[35] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

listen  to  such  brutal  sentiments  from  the  mis- 
creant bearing  his  name?' 

"I  was  sitting  by  my  mother,  and  she 
turned  to  me  with  a  kind  of  twinkle  in  her 
eye.  'Henry,'  she  said,  'there's  a  train  for 
South  Norwalk  in  about  an  hour.  I  think 
you  better  take  it.' 

"I  took  it.  And  I  never  got  the  twenty 
dollars  they  promised  me  for  my  speech !" 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  he  enlisted. 
He  found  his  place  in  Company  C,  the  right- 
center  company  of  his  regiment,  the  twenty- 
seventh  Connecticut.  Sixty  years  after  this 
enlistment  he  told  me  the  story  of  his  soldier- 
ing. "I  was  very  proud,"  he  said,  "when  at 
the  start  I  was  chosen  as  one  of  the  twelve 
boys  in  the  color  guard.  We  took  it  awfully 
serious.  We  swore  we  would  die  before  our 
flag  should  be  taken.  You  haven't  any  idea 
what  a  holy  thing  it  was  to  us.  I  guess  I  felt 
about  that  flag  like  father  seemed  to  feel 
about  the  family  Bible.  He  always  handled 
it  gently,  and  I  have  seen  him  kiss  it.  I 
don't  believe  there  was  a  color  guard  in  the 
army  that  took  better  care  of  its  flag  than 
we  boys  did. 

"It  was  not  until  December  that  we  saw 
any  real  fighting,  and  that  was  at  Fredericks- 

[36] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

burg.  Our  regiment  was  in  Hancock's  divi- 
sion, and  they  sent  us  across  the  river,  right 
under  the  heights.  We  had  been  down  in 
that  country  long  enough  for  every  man  to 
know  that  those  bluffs  were  stuck  full  of  Con- 
federate cannons  and  rifle  pits,  and  that  if 
they  ever  opened  fire  a  chicken  couldn't  live 
on  the  field ;  but  when  Hancock  came  around 
the  evening  before  the  attack  and  told  us  we 
were  to  be  ready  to  go  out  in  the  morning,  we 
cheered  and  cheered  him.  It  was  awful  cold 
that  night.  We  huddled  together,  talked  a 
little,  and  we  fellows  in  the  color  guard  got 
together  and  swore  again  that  they  should 
never  get  the  flag  as  long  as  any  of  us  was 
alive.  That  is  what  we  thought  most  of — 
keeping  the  flag. 

"That  night,  when  I  was  trying  to  sleep,  a 
South  Norwich  boy  in  the  guard  crawled  over 
to  me.  He  was  young,  only  about  seventeen ; 
he  ought  not  to  have  been  there.  'Henry,' 
he  said,  'I  want  to  tell  you  something.  I  am 
going  to  be  killed  tomorrow,  and  you  are 
going  home  on  crutches.  My  mother  came  to 
me  last  night  and  told  me  that.'  His  mother 
had  died  when  he  was  two  years  old.  I  could 
not  say  anything.  He  didn't  have  any  doubt 
it  was  so,  and  I  didn't  much.     I  know  such 

[37] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

things  happen ;  people  do  come  back  and  tell 
you  what  is  going  to  happen.  They  did  it 
all  the  time  in  that  war. 

"It  was  early  in  the  morning  when  we  went 
in.  We  were  mighty  proud  of  ourselves  for 
a  minute.  The  Confederates  let  us  come  on 
until  we  got  to  the  very  heights,  and  when  we 
started  up  they  opened  on  us  and  we  went 
down  like  wheat  does  under  a  scythe,  hardly 
a  head  standing.  I  was  hit  pretty  quick  in 
the  leg,  and  I  guess  I  didn't  know  much  for  a 
time.  When  I  came  to  I  raised  up  and 
looked  for  the  flag.  I  could  see  it  going 
down — coming  up — going  down — coming 
up ;  and  then  I  remembered  Will  and  what  he 
had  told  me  the  night  before.  I  wcndered  if 
he  had  been  killed,  and  so  I  crawled  over 
where  I  thought  he  would  be,  and  there  I 
found  him — dead. 

"I  could  not  see  the  flag  any  more  and  I 
began  to  worry  about  it.  I  just  had  to  be 
sure  that  our  boys  still  had  it,  and  I  started 
to  crawl  where  I  thought  it  might  be,  and 
then  I  got  hit  in  the  hand.  After  a  little  I 
crawled  on  again,  and  then  I  found  the  flag. 
And  I  found  some  more  of  our  boys  dead; 
there  were  ten  killed  there. 

"I  don't  remember  much  what  happened 

[38] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

after  I  found  the  flag.  The  next  thing  I 
knew  I  was  lying  on  top  of  a  piano.  There 
were  doctors  beside  me,  and  they  had  made  a 
mark  around  my  leg  and  another  around  my 
arm;  and  when  I  saw  they  meant  to  cut  off 
my  leg  and  my  arm  it  made  me  mad,  and  I 
began  to  curse  them.  They  just  took  me  off 
the  piano  and  threw  me  out  on  the  grass. 
You  couldn't  blame  them.  Trhere  were 
twelve  doctors  for  fifteen  hundred  wounded 
men,  and  they  couldn't  have  patients  fight- 
ing them.  They  didn't  think  I  would  live 
anyway. 

"It  was  Friday  morning  that  they  threw 
me  out,  and  it  was  not  until  Sunday  night 
they  got  me  to  Lookout  Hospital.  The 
doctor  came  around  and  looked  at  me  and 
went  by — didn't  say  anything.  Then  a 
Sister  of  Charity  came  and  asked  me  if  she 
should  get  me  a  priest,  and  I  said,  no,  that  I 
was  not  a  Catholic.  Then  she  said,  'Shall  I 
get  you  a  minister?'  'Does  that  mean  you 
think  I  am  going  to  die?'  'Yes,'  she  said, 
'you  cannot  live  overnight.' 

"  'I  am  not  going  to  die,'  I  said.  'Before 
I  left  home  my  mother  read  from  the  ninety- 
first  Psalm:  "A  thousand  shall  fall  at  thy 
side,  and  ten  thousand  at  thy  right  hand; 

[39] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

but  it  shall  not  come  nigh  thee."  You  are 
coming  back,  Henry,'  she  said.  You  don't 
suppose  that  I  am  going  to  die  after  that 
do  you? 

"That  seemed  to  interest  Sister  Antoine, 
as  they  called  her,  and  she  sent  one  of  her 
aids,  Sister  Mary,  to  take  care  of  me.  Sister 
Mary  was  young  and  pretty.  She  cut  off 
those  two  fingers  with  a  pair  of  scissors  and 
picked  all  the  proud  flesh  but  of  my  wounds. 
Day  and  night  for  a  week  she  sat  there,  flush- 
ing them  with  tepid  water  and  Castile  soap, 
and  every  now  and  then  giving  me  a  few 
crumbs  of  bread  in  wine.  I  began  to  get 
well  right  away.  She  was  the  first  girl  I 
ever  wanted  to  marry.  I  told  Sister  Antoine 
so,  and  she  said,  no,  it  could  not  be,  that 
Sister  Mary  was  a  bride  of  Christ.  But  I 
thought  a  lot  about  her  for  a  long  time. 
They  dismissed  me  in  March — on  crutches. 
And,  of  course,  that  was  the  last  of  me  as  a 
soldier." 

But  if  it  was  the  end  of  his  soldiering,  it 
was  not  the  end  of  his  work  for  the  Union. 
Back  in  Connecticut  he  was  soon  making 
speeches  and  writing  editorials — editorials  so 
good  that  Horace  Greeley  noticed  them  and 
asked  him  to  join  the  staff  of  the  New  York 

[40] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

Tribune.  But  New  York  was  too  far  from 
the  army.  The  hunger  to  be  near  it  again 
was  on  him.  Would  not  Mr.  Greeley  find  a 
place  for  him  in  the  Washington  bureau? 
Possibly  who  knows  there  was  lurking  in 
his  mind  the  thought  that  Washington  might 
mean  a  sight  of  Sister  Mary — Sister  Mary 
whose  soft  eyes,  gentle  voice  and  soothing 
hands  he  could  not  forget.  At  all  events  he 
was  transferred  late  in  1863,  and  there  he 
was  in  March  of  1864  when  the  long-standing 
feud  between  the  War  Department  and  the 
newspapermen  culminated  in  an  order  from 
Secretary  Stanton  that  no  more  civilians  be 
allowed  to  go  to  the  front. 

The  order  was  not  as  unreasonable  as  it 
sounds.  From  the  beginning  of  the  war 
there  had  been  trouble.  The  army's  busi- 
ness was  to  conceal  its  movements;  the  cor- 
respondents considered  it  their  business  to 
reveal  them.  More  than  once  attempted  sur- 
prise movements  had  been  laid  out  in  all  their 
details  in  Northern  newspapers  and  had 
reached  the  Confederates  in  ample  time  for 
frustration.  Little  wonder  that  the  Secre- 
taries of  War  and  Navy  suspected  the  fra- 
ternity and  often  dealt  harshly  and  unjustly 
with  its  members. 

[41] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

Officers,  especially  those  in  positions  of 
great  responsibility,  shared  this  dislike  of 
correspondents,  more  particularly  because  of 
their  activity  in  trying  to  boost  or  pull  down 
this  or  that  man.  Sometimes  it  was  a 
grudge,  wounded  vanity,  back  of  the  re- 
porter's activities;  he  had  not  been  asked  to 
mess  with  the  general;  he  had  been  refused 
a  favor;  he  had  been  reprimanded.  Again, 
it  was  a  quite  natural  desire  to  flatter  the 
vanity  of  the  local  constituency  he  served  by 
telling  how  superior  some  man  who  hailed 
from  their  neighborhood  was  to  the  head  of 
his  corps,  or  to  the  head  of  the  army  itself. 
Grant  at  one  time  was  so  hurt  and  disgusted 
by  hostile  and  irresponsible  newspaper  com- 
ments that  he  considered  leaving  the  army. 
As  for  Sherman,  he  was  kept  in  a  state  of 
violent  and  profane  indignation.  The  news- 
paper reporters  were  fools,  he  said,  venal, 
theL*  only  object  to  pick  up  news.  They 
were  forever  praising  the  idle  and  worthless 
who  catered  to  them,  and  crying  down  the 
hard  working  and  meritorious  who  hauled 
them  up  for  their  indiscretions  and  disobedi- 
ence of  orders. 

This  feeling  against  the  newspaper  cor- 
respondent was  at  its  height  when  Grant's 

[42] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

campaign  of  1864  was  undertaken.  Every- 
one agreed  that  there  must  be  no  leakages 
this  time;  hence  Secretary  Stanton's  decree, 
given  before  the  campaign  opened,  and,  as  it 
happened,  when  every  correspondent  of  the 
Tribune  was  in  Washington  for  the  day. 

There  was  awful  excitement:  the  chief  of 
the  bureau  swore  that  any  man  who  did  not 
have  dispatches  from  the  army  in  his  hands 
in  forty-eight  hours  would  be  discharged. 
But  nobody  budged.  It  was  too  risky,  they 
told  one  another.  Stanton  surely  would  clap 
any  man  into  prison  who  was  caught  trying 
to  reach  the  army,  and  they  had  no  stomach 
for  prisons. 

Henry  Wing  listened  in  disgust,  and  fin- 
ally, crippled  as  he  was,  dared  one  of  the 
men  to  try  with  him  to  run  the  blockade. 
The  man  took  him  up,  and  forty-eight  hours 
later,  after  a  hazardous  jaunt  of  some  sixty 
miles,  the  two  crept  between  the  Union 
pickets.  Henry's  companion  was  safe;  he 
simply  was  at  his  post,  his  credentials  in  his 
pocket,  but  Henry  was  an  unaccredited  run- 
away. He  wired  his  chief  that  he  was  there, 
and  his  chief,  who  appreciated  valor  and  was 
not  averse  to  disobedience  of  orders  if  it 
meant  news,  immediately  appointed  him  a 

[43] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune  with 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

The  story  of  his  exploit  was  soon  spread 
through  the  army,  also  the  story  of  his  limp. 
A  feeling  for  him  very  different  from  that 
for  the  ordinary  run  of  correspondent  grew 
among  officers  and  men.  He  carried  his 
wounds;  all  that  they  faced  he  had  faced; 
and,  though  crippled,  he  had  taken  the  ser- 
vice that  he  was  fit  for  and  continued  to  run 
dangers  as  they  did.  Indeed,  Henry  seemed 
oblivious  of  danger.  News  to  him  was  where 
action  was ;  therefore  he  must  be  on  the  spot, 
whatever  the  risk.  His  quick  eye  and  ear 
saw  and  heard  official  gestures  and  orders 
never  intended  for  reporters,  and  he  acted  on 
them.  His  daily  adventuring  into  dangerous 
places  and  his  escapes  were  the  amazement 
of  his  colleagues.  "Wing's  luck,"  they 
called  it.  It  was  not  all  luck,  but  unusual 
hardihood  and  quick  wit. 

But  of  all  this  Abraham  Lincoln  knew 
nothing  when  in  May,  1864?,  half  playfully, 
he  annexed  Henry  Wing  for  his  own  private 
news  service. 

Henry  rejoined  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac just  in  time  for  the  battle  of  Spotsyl- 
vania and  the  beginning  of  a  campaign  of 

[  44] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

three  weeks'  fighting,  the  most  dreadful  ever 
seen  on  this  continent.  The  boy  told  him- 
self more  than  once  in  those  tormented  days 
that  never  before  had  he  guessed  of  what  war 
might  mean.  He  had  lain  in  camps,  had 
gone  into  one  great  battle  to  be  cut  down  in 
ten  minutes  after  he  faced  the  enemy,  he  had 
lain  wounded  for  forty-eight  hours  without 
food  or  care,  he  had  been  crippled  for  life; 
but  nothing  before  this  had  seared  his  soul, 
had  destroyed  for  him  the  glamour  of  war. 

But  this — this  was  a  revelation  of  horrors 
he  had  never  conceived.  For  three  weeks  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  threw  itself  again  and 
again  against  an  intrenched  foe  as  intent  on 
saving  men  as  Grant  seemed  intent  on  de- 
stroying them.  The  Union  troops  fought,  fell 
back,  strove  to  turn  flanks,  were  driven  in; 
threw  themselves  against  intrenchments  only 
to  be  again  driven  back.  They  fought  in 
bogs  and  thickets.  Night  and  day  in  that 
unknown  tangle,  so  familiar  to  their  enemy, 
they  were  shot  as  they  slept,  as  they 
boiled  their  coffee,  as  they  rested  about  the 
camp  fire.  Every  tree  seemed  alive  with 
sharpshooters. 

Amazed,  outraged,  Henry  Wing  threw 
himself  into  the  thick  of  it.     He  was  more 

[45] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

soldier  than  correspondent.  More  than  one 
tale  was  afloat  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
of  this  merry,  limping  newspaperman  who, 
caught  in  some  fierce  eddy  of  disorderly 
fighting,  seized  a  rifle  from  a  fallen  man  and 
joined  the  ranks.  The  dreadful  advance — 
for  advance  it  was — went  on  day  after  day, 
interminably  it  seemed  to  Henry,  until,  after 
Cold  Harbor,  his  body  racked  with  unbear- 
able pain  from  his  reckless  disregard  of  his 
crippled  leg,  his  very  soul  aflame  with  despair 
and  revolt,  he  took  a  boat  for  Washington 
with  his  dispatches. 

All  the  abounding  enthusiasm  and  com- 
panionableness  were  gone  out  of  him.  All 
he  wanted  was  to  be  let  alone,  and  he  crept 
into  an  out-of-the-way  corner  to  rest.  But 
the  turmoil  of  nerves  and  soul  left  him  no 
rest.  It  was  there  on  the  deck  of  the  north- 
bound boat  that  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life  he  faced  a  desire,  ending  in  a  determina- 
tion, to  give  up  something  that  he  had  under- 
taken. He  was  going  out  of  that  hell.  Why 
should  he  go  back?  Had  he  not  proved  his 
willingness  to  serve?  He  was  not  a  soldier, 
only  a  news  gatherer.  There  were  a  hundred 
men  eager  for  the  place;  let  them  have  it. 

His  dispatches  turned  in,  he  sought  his 

[46] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

Washington  bed;  but  his  sleep  was  broken 
by  paroxysms  of  pain,  harassed  by  dreams 
of  pallid,  dying  men  staggering  back  from 
the  fighting  line  or  lying  helpless  in  stacks 
of  dead  which  crowded  the  battlefields. 

The  day  was  well  along  when,  his  deter- 
mination to  quit  still  unbroken,  he  sought 
the  bureau.  He  must  tell  his  chief  that  he 
was  resigning. 

As  he  entered  the  office  his  chief  looked 
up.  "Henry,"  he  said,  "Mr.  Lincoln  knows 
you  are  here;  he  wants  to  see  you." 

He  had  forgotten  Mr.  Lincoln — forgotten 
their  compact.  He  must  go  and  tell  him  his 
story  before  he  resigned. 

It  was  evening  when  he  was  admitted  to 
the  White  House,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  alone. 
As  the  man  and  youth  met  each  felt  a  shock 
of  dismayed  pity  at  what  he  saw  in  the  other's 
face.  Three  weeks  before  they  had  parted 
almost  gayly — the  man,  if  anxious,  hopeful; 
the  boy  confident,  buoyant;  and  now  both 
looked  from  drawn  gray  faces  into  eyes  dull 
with  anguish.  The  look  on  the  President's 
face  jerked  Henry  Wing  out  of  his  self -ab- 
sorption. It  was  not  he  alone  who  had  seen 
dreadful  sights,  heard  dreadful  sounds.  Were 
not   the   streets    of   Washington   where   the 

[47] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

President  daily  drove  back  and  forth  to 
his  home  on  the  Hill  dripping  with  blood — 
one  long  procession  of  wounded  and  dead? 
Were  not  the  very  corridors  of  the  White 
House  crowded  from  daylight  to  dark  with 
raging  men  and  weeping  women?  The  fury 
and  the  woe  of  the  country  were  on  his  head. 

Putting  one  long  arm  around  the  youth  in 
affectionate  greeting,  the  President  pushed 
him  to  a  chair  beside  the  big  office  desk,  and 
seating  himself  opposite,  his  elbow  on  the 
table,  his  hand  shading  his  eyes,  his  body 
bent  forward,  he  said,  "Henry,  I  wish  you 
would  tell  me  all  about  it;  everything  since 
you  left.  What  you  have  seen  and  heard. 
How  does  it  look  to  you?" 

The  boy  hesitated.  Where  to  begin?  He 
could  never  tell  afterward  how  he  did  begin, 
only  that  under  the  spell  of  those  dark  and 
suffering  eyes  intent  upon  him,  he  began  to 
talk  and  was  soon  talking  out  his  very  soul. 
He  had  been  secreting  intolerable  things  in 
honor  of  the  censorship  but  the  President  was 
a  higher  authority.  These  things  belonged 
to  the  President. 

His  story  had  no  orderly  sequence,  though 
he  tried  to  keep  one.  It  broke,  ran  away 
from  him.    He  took  up  the  trail,  turned  back, 

[48] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

only  to  lose  himself  again.  There  were 
sudden  outbursts  of  rage — rage  because  men 
who  had  led  in  these  awful  weeks  were  so 
jealous  of  position,  so  intent  on  escaping 
from  their  own  errors,  that  they  would  stop 
in  the  frightful  struggle  to  accuse  one  an- 
other, to  threaten,  would  weaken  their  own 
ability  to  act  by  hate  and  self-seeking.  He 
had  come  upon  it  at  the  start — a  command- 
ing general  and  the  ablest  cavalry  leader  in 
the  army  weakening  the  whole  tottering 
structure  by  a  quarrel. 

The  story  went  on:  Camps  of  men  sleep- 
ing on  their  arms,  attacks  on  intrenchments 
that  laughed  in  their  faces — hand  to  hand 
struggles,  marches  in  marshes,  jungles,  bogs, 
in  sunlight  and  in  rain.  The  boy  pictured 
the  swamps  and  swollen  streams,  woods,  roll- 
ing hills,  the  little  courthouses,  churches, 
plantation  houses,  giving  their  names  to 
battles  which  men  will  never  forget.  The 
scenes  and  the  story  unrolled  with  details  of 
awful  slaughter. 

There  was  the  "Angle  of  Death,"  the 
Bloody  Angle.  It  had  rained  that  day. 
He  could  not  see,  so  he  left  his  horse  and 
followed  afoot.  He  had  lain  on  his  stom- 
ach in  a  clump  of  bushes  close  by,  and  he  had 

[49] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

watched  a  narrow  Union  line,  often  but  two 
men  deep,  crumbling  and  crumbling  as  it 
fought  for  one  little  point.  Men  were 
thrown  to  right  and  left,  killed  and  maimed. 
They  piled  up  on  each  side  while  always  be- 
hind came  that  narrow,  indomitable  stream, 
breaking  itself  to  rags  against  its  enemy. 
And  always  those  behind  knew  what  was  com- 
ing to  them ;  they  could  see  the  piles  growing. 
Well,  they  took  the  Angle,  held  it,  died  for  it 
and,  unsupported,  were  ordered  from  it. 

The  story  leaped  from  the  Angle  to  Cold 
Harbor,  twenty-two  days  later.  If  one  was 
butchery,  the  other  was  murder — sheer 
murder.  The  boy's  voice,  hot  with  passion, 
cried  out  the  word.  The  army  had  known 
what  it  meant  to  take  those  heights  at  Cold 
Harbor.  It  had  been  there  in  sixty-two.  All 
the  night  before  the  attack,  men  prepared 
for  death,  writing  farewell  messages,  pinning 
tags  with  their  names  and  addresses  on  their 
coats. 

"An  army  moving  across  country  to  battle 
is  beautiful  to  see,  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  was 
lovely  at  four  o'clock — the  time  they  went  in 
at  Cold  Harbor.  The  fields  were  green  and 
fragrant  and  dewy,  and  the  birds  were  sing- 
ing.   I  sat  on  a  hill  watching  them  move  out. 

[50] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

The  lines  were  so  gay.  There  were  flags 
flying,  horses  prancing;  they  went  on  so 
steadily  and  quietly.  You  could  not  think 
that  it  meant  murder.  I  was  watching  Han- 
cock's corps.  There  was  a  regiment  of  boys 
there  I  knew,  boys  I  grew  up  with  in  Con- 
necticut. Why,  I  had  played  hooky  and 
gone  swimming  and  'spelled  down'  with 
dozens  of  them.  I  knew  them  by  name,  knew 
their  fathers  and  mothers  and  sisters.  They 
had  never  seen  a  real  battle  before,  only 
skirmishes.  They  had  kept  them  up  here 
around  Washington  some  eighteen  months, 
and  then  sent  them  down  there.  The  old  fel- 
lows had  been  poking  fun  at  them — 'Never 
seen  fire  yet,  boys'  ?  'Bet  you  will  run' ;  that 
is  what  they  would  tell  them. 

"It  was  those  boys  I  watched  when  the 
order  came,  and  they  went  against  those 
heights  without  a  waver.  There  wasn't  a 
chance  of  success.  They  knew  it,  but  they 
went  on  just  the  same,  dropping  in  their 
tracks  as  they  came ;  and  those  behind  rushed 
over  the  dead  and  wounded,  and  fell.  You 
could  not  believe  so  many  men  could  die  in 
twenty  minutes;  and  that  is  all  the  time  it 
took.  Lee  killed  seven  thousand  of  us  that 
day,  and  we  hardly  scratched  him.     It  was 

[51] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

murder — murder,  I  tell  you."  The  strident, 
angry  voice  wavered,  and  the  story  wandered 
among  the  dead. 

Always  at  night  after  the  battles  he  had 
gone  over  the  fields  of  wounded  and  dead. 
All  that  night  after  Cold  Harbor  he  had 
tramped  up  and  down,  looking  for  the  Con- 
necticut boys  he  knew,  taking  their  names, 
their  keepsakes,  and  always  among  them  there 
were  those  that  were  not  dead,  yet  dying,  who 
had  a  message  to  give.  He  had  brought  up 
hundreds  of  names,  scores  of  messages.  It 
was  all  one  could  do.  And  when  you  had 
been  there  yourself,  had  lain  all  night 
wounded  as  he  had  after  Fredericksburg,  you 
could  not  bear  to  stop  as  long  as  there  was  a 
dead  or  dying  man  uncared  for;  you  must 
help  what  you  could. 

Until  now  the  listening  President  had  sat 
motionless,  his  hand  to  his  forehead,  his 
somber  eyes  fixed  on  the  boy.  But  when  the 
story  touched  on  reminiscence  he  stirred  to 
life,  his  hand  came  down,  he  sat  up  straight, 
astonished. 

"You,  Henry,  a  soldier — at  Fredericks- 
burg? That's  where  you  got  your  limp?" 
And  then  slowly,  "I  never  thought  of 
that." 

[52] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

He  threw  off  the  nightmare  of  the  story 
he  had  been  hearing — the  story  so  awfully 
personal,  for  which  he  was  so  awfully  re- 
sponsible. His  interest  was  suddenly  in- 
tent on  the  boy  who  had  been  pouring  out 
what  he  had  seen  and  felt  in  this  month 
with  the  battling  army. 

He  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair,  and 
swinging  one  long  leg  to  the  top  of  the  desk, 
said:  "Where  were  you  born,  Henry?  Tell 
me  about  yourself.  How  did  you  get  into 
the  army?" 

And  Henry  Wing,  probed  by  the  Presi- 
dent's questions,  told  his  story — much,  I 
imagine,  as  sixty  years  later  he  was  to  tell 
it  to  me,  and  as  I  have  told  it  to  you. 

Wonder  grew  on  Mr.  Lincoln  as  he  lis- 
tened. "And  after  that,"  he  exclaimed,  as 
Henry  ended  with  the  story  of  his  crippling, 
"you  go  back  to  the  army — are  going  back 
again!  Why,  boy,  you  shame  me.  You've 
done  your  part;  anybody  would  say  that. 
You  could  quit  in  honor,  but  you  stick.  I 
wonder,"  he  said  in  humility,  "if  I  could  do 
that.  I  don't  believe  I  would.  There's 
many  a  night,  Henry,  that  I  plan  to  resign. 
I  wouldn't  run  again  now  if  I  didn't  know 
these  other  fellows  couldn't  save  the  Union  on 

[53] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

their  platforms,  whatever  they  say.  I  can't 
quit,  Henry ;  I  have  to  stay.  But  you  could, 
and  you  don't.  You  give  me  courage,  Henry 
Wing — make  me  feel  if  that's  the  kind  of 
stuff  that  makes  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
I  needn't  worry." 

They  had  risen  and  were  standing  looking 
each  other  full  in  the  eye,  and  the  Presi- 
dent, as  he  looked,  possibly  read  something 
of  the  boy's  revolt — his  decision,  for  putting 
his  arm  about  him  he  said  almost  pleadingly 
— so  it  seemed  to  Henry  Wing :  "I  reckon  we 
won't  quit,  will  we,  Henry?" 

And  Henry,  straightening  himself  up,  said 
resolutely :  "No,  Mr.  Lincoln ;  we  won't  quit." 

And  so  their  compact  was  renewed. 

Throughout  the  summer  and  fall  that  fol- 
lowed, Henry  Wing  always  ended  his  fre- 
quent returns  to  Washington  with  a  visit  to 
the  White  House,  a  visit  which  extended  fre- 
quently into  the  small  hours  of  the  morning. 

"Show  me  where  you  have  been,  Henry," 
was  always  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  request,  and 
Henry,  spreading  his  field  map  on  the  table, 
would  trace  his  movements. 

For  Mr.  Lincoln  it  was  like  riding  at  the 
youth's  side ;  for  the  young  man  told  a  score 
of  incidents — what  had  happened  here,  what 

[54] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

he  had  seen  or  heard  there,  the  unreported, 
the  officially  unimportant.  An  outsider  lis- 
tening to  Henry's  talk  might  have  said  that 
the  human  details  with  which  it  was  filled,  the 
talk  of  men  at  camp  fires,  their  confidences, 
their  plans,  would  be  irrelevant  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's great  purpose;  to  the  listening  Presi- 
dent, hungry  for  the  stuff  that  made  up  the 
life  of  the  army,  they  were  its  very  flesh  and 
blood. 

A  feature  of  Henry  Wing's  talks,  to  which 
the  President  listened  avidly,  was  his  stories 
of  those  pathetic  derelicts  of  war,  young  and 
old,  feeble  and  crippled,  that  a  passing  army 
leaves  and  which  must  go  down  to  destruc- 
tion unless  a  strong  hand  is  stretched  out  to 
save  them.  Henry  Wing  could  no  more  pass 
by  one  such  than  he  could  refuse  to  join  a 
dangerous  raid.  There  were  many  tales 
afloat  at  headquarters  of  his  rescues.  For 
instance  about  his  baby  his  colleagues  long 
teased  him. 

He  had  come  stealing,  breathless,  soaked, 
bareheaded,  into  a  sleeping  camp  one  night, 
to  inform  headquarters  that  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles  to  the  south,  part  of  a  Union  detach- 
ment had  been  surrounded  by  superior  forces 
and  unless  promptly  relieved  would  unques- 

[55] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

tionably  be  destroyed  at  daybreak.  He  had, 
characteristically  enough,  taken  it  on  him- 
self to  try  to  get  through  to  headquarters. 
It  was  a  dangerous  exploit,  for  the  lines  lay 
so  close  together  that  there  was  no  way  at 
many  points  of  telling  friend  from  foe;  but 
Henry  Wing  valued  his  own  skill  as  a  scout 
much  higher  than  he  did  that  of  many  who 
bore  the  official  title.  Moreover,  there  was 
news  to  be  put  through — put  through  before 
anybody  else  got  it,  if  possible. 

He  told  his  story  tersely  and  clearly,  point- 
ing out  on  his  field  map  with  an  accuracy 
which  headquarters  had  learned  to  trust  the 
location  of  the  trapped  force.  All  the  time 
that  he  was  talking  he  was  huddling  close  in 
his  arms  a  little  black  baby.  Even  the  ex- 
citement of  his  message  and  the  ensuing  con- 
fusion of  sending  relief  did  not  prevent  his 
colleagues  asking,  "What  in  the  world " 

It  was  a  characteristic  Wing  exploit,  so 
all  agreed.  At  a  moment  in  his  dangerous 
journey  when  he  knew  himself  to  be  close  to 
an  outpost — whether  Union  or  Confederate 
he  could  not  tell — and  was  crawling  through 
the  tall  grass  fringing  a  little  lake,  he  heard 
what  he  recognized  after  moments  of  breath- 
less listening  the  babbling  of  an  infant.    Fol- 

[56] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

lowing  the  sound  he  had  come  upon  a  negro 
woman  dying  from  a  bullet  in  her  breast,  the 
chance  shot  of  a  picket,  no  doubt.  She  had 
only  strength  to  point  to  the  little  one.  All 
that  Henry  Wing  could  do  to  comfort  her 
was  to  pick  up  the  baby  and  tell  her  he  would 
look  after  it. 

He  kept  his  word,  for  after  she  was  dead, 
though  he  knew  he  was  endangering  his 
life,  he  buttoned  the  child  inside  his  coat 
and  continued  his  perilous  journey.  What 
he  expected  happened.  The  child  began  to 
cry,  and  instantly  he  was  surrounded.  He 
had  stumbled  into  the  outpost  he  knew  to  be 
near.  Luckily  for  him  he  had  struck  the 
vJnion  line,  and  he  was  immediately  hustled 
to  the  commanding  officer's  tent  with  his 
message.  And  there  he  stood  now,  pressing 
the  child  to  him.  It  was  only  when  he  heard 
the  order  given  for  rescue  that  he  hurried 
off  to  the  contraband  camp  to  deposit  h;s 
find  in  the  arms  of  a  motherly  negress. 

Often  the  human  problems  Henry 
shouldered  could  not  be  solved  as  easily  as 
that  of  his  baby,  and  again  and  again  he 
sought  Mr.  Lincoln's  help.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  was  not  long  before  the  two  were 
joined  in  a  conspiracy  of  relief — how  to  ex- 

[57] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

tricate  victims  from  the  army  law  when  they 
believed  the  victim  was  worth  it — a  victim, 
not  a  criminal. 

There  was  Henry's  drummer  boy.  Com- 
ing up  from  the  army  by  boat  one  hot  night, 
he  had  left  his  cabin,  where  he  was  writing 
his  dispatches,  to  stroll  the  deck  for  air.  As 
he  passed  the  wheelhouse  he  caught  a  glimpse 
of  a  forlorn  little  figure  huddling  in  a  corner 
close  to  the  rail.  A  child,  he  said  to  himself, 
but  it  was  a  child  wearing  the  cap  of  a  drum- 
mer boy.  By  his  side  was  not  only  his  drum 
but  the  equipment  of  an  infantryman. 

Henry  Wing's  friendliness  was  of  that 
pure  quality  which  dogs  and  children  never 
suspect.  They  accept  it  as  it  is  offered.  In 
Hye  minutes  he  was  curled  up  in  the  corner 
beside  the  boy  and  a  desolate  little  soul  was 
telling  him  its  story. 

A  year  ago  his  mother,  with  whom  he 
lived  up  North,  had  died.  His  father  was 
in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He  had  gone 
from  his  mother's  grave  to  his  home,  taken 
his  drum — every  boy  in  those  days  had  a 
drum — and  had  slipped  out  of  the  town  by 
a  southbound  train.  He  was  only  twelve 
years  old,  and  small  for  that.  Kindly  con- 
ductors and  brakemen,  hearing  his  story,  had 

[58] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

passed  him  on.  Wonderful  tribute  to  hu- 
man tenderness !  He  had  actually  found  his 
father,  had  been  accepted  as  a  drummer  boy 
and  had  tapped  his  way  through  the  Wilder- 
ness to  the  James.  Now,  two  days  before 
his  father  had  been  killed.  He  had  taken 
his  rifle,  his  canteen,  his  belt,  and  had  left 
the  army.  He  was  going  back  to  his  mother's 
grave. 

Henry  Wing  gathered  up  drum,  rifle  and 
canteen,  and,  with  one  arm  around  the  child, 
led  him  to  his  stateroom,  where  he  fed 
him  and  put  him  in  his  own  bed.  That 
night  he  sat  in  a  chair.  The  next  day  they 
were  in  Washington.  It  was  something  of 
a,  problem.  He  had  pressing  work  and  the 
child  clung  to  him.  In  the  afternoon  his 
duties  led  him  to  the  White  House,  to  the 
President,  who  kindly  listened  to  the  whole 
story. 

"What  are  we  going  to  do  with  him, 
Henry?"  he  asked  when  Henry  Wing  had 
finished.  "We,"  you  see !  "He  must  have  a 
pass  at  once.  I  suppose  if  the  provost  mar- 
shal got  his  eye  on  him  he  would  clap  him  into 
prison  as  a  deserter" — which  technically,  of 
course,  he  was.  The  President  wrote  him  a 
pass,  and  the  two  decided  that  for  the  moment 

[59] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

they  would  ask  the  Christian  Commission  to 
give  him  a  home. 

Not  many  hours  later  Henry  Wing,  whose 
duties  had  called  him  to  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber, was  greeted  by  a  well-known  senator: 
"About  that  drummer  boy,  Wing?  I  want 
him.  I  am  going  to  give  him  a  home  and  an 
education." 

"How  in  the  world  did  you  hear  about 
him?"  Henry  asked. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "some  of  us  went  up  to 
the  White  House  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln.  The 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  tell  us  about  your 
boy.  It  looked  as  if  he  could  not  get  down 
to  business  until  he  had  settled  him  into  what 
he  called  good  hands.  Had  us  all  blubber- 
ing.    I  am  going  to  take  care  of  that  boy." 

As  the  weeks  went  on  and  Henry  sensed 
more  and  more  Mr.  Lincoln's  imperative  need 
of  knowing  how  far  he  could  count  on  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  he  redoubled  his  efforts 
to  understand  it  himself.  He  began  to  see  it 
as  it  was,  an  army  dominated  by  veterans — 
men  who  had  been  at  Bull  Run,  Fredericks- 
burg, Chancellorsville ;  officers  who  knew  no 
other  field  than  Virginia  nor  any  other  ob- 
jective than  Richmond.  He  found  that  it 
had  its  habits,  "ways,"  code,  its  peculiar  in- 

[60] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

stitutions.  One  of  these  institutions,  of  which 
he  made  free  use,  was  the  unique  news  service 
which  the  veterans  had  developed  for  their 
own  satisfaction,  and  which  they  trusted  far 
more  implicitly  than  the  official  bulletins, 
framed,  they  said  cynically,  to  tell  what  ought 
to  have  happened,  not  what  did.  Their  news 
service  was  carried  on  by  a  fraternity  known 
in  the  ranks  as  "Camp  Walkers" — men  with 
an  insatiable  natural  curiosity  about  what 
was  going  on  in  their  world.  Back  home 
they  had  always  gone  "up  street"  at  night 
to  the  drug  store,  the  corner  grocery,  to  tell 
what  they  knew  and  to  hear  what  others  had 
to  tell.  Turned  soldiers,  they  were  not  con- 
tent with  the  news  of  their  own  company. 
The  whole  army  was  their  field,  and  gradu- 
ally they  formed  the  habit  of  dropping  in 
at  foreign  camp  fires  night  after  night  to  ask 
questions,  repeat  what  they  had  heard  else- 
where and  push  on.  Frequently  it  was  mid- 
night and  later  before  they  were  back  in  their 
beds. 

The  Camp  Walkers  accepted  Henry  as  one 
of  their  own.  Had  he  not  been  a  soldier, 
and  had  he  not  proved  a  courage  which  many 
of  them  asked  themselves  if  they  would  have 
mastered,  when,  unfitted  for  soldiering,  he 

[61] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

had  nevertheless  come  back  to  face  death 
again.  For  they  knew  well  enough,  these 
men  with  whom  he  nightly  tramped  and 
talked,  that  in  this  campaign  he  was  running 
the  same  risks  they  did. 

It  was  not  only  the  news  they  brought 
that  Henry  was  interested  in ;  the  discussions 
of  the  campaigns  by  these  men  were  well 
worth  any  reporter's  attention,  and  particu- 
larly valuable  did  he  consider  them  for  Mr. 
Lincoln.  There  were  few  of  the  more  intelli- 
gent ones  who  did  not  carry  inside  their 
pockets  good-sized  field  maps — some  of  them 
had  gone  through  the  whole  three  years. 
They  knew  the  topography  of  the  country 
better  than  many  of  their  officers,  and  they 
had  their  own  notions  of  strategy.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  veterans  viewed  military 
matters  with  a  practical  common  sense  sim- 
ilar to  that  of  Lincoln  himself,  and  they 
supported  what  they  believed  to  be  false 
moves  and  defeats  a  good  deal  as  he  did,  with 
disgust — and  patience. 

The  Camp  Walkers'  news  and  comments 
figured  constantly  in  Llenry's  talks  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  giving  him  that  sense  of  what  the 
men  were  doing  and  feeling  for  which  he 
hungered.     Unquestionably  he  got  a  better 

[62] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

realization  through  Henry  than  from  any 
other  source  of  the  contempt  that  the  vet- 
erans had  for  Grant's  use  of  men  in  the  south- 
ward march.  They  were  willing  to  die,  but 
they  thought  it  was  stupid  to  spend  seasoned 
men  as  he  was  spending  them,  to  make  attacks 
on  breast  works  which  must  fail;  it  was  not 
worth  it.  And  they  were  particularly  in- 
dignant that  the  ranks  depleted  by  these  re- 
peated futile  attacks  should  be  filled  by  a 
class  of  men  for  whom  they  had  supreme  con- 
tempt— "Coffee  Boilers,"  they  called  them. 
They  were  men  who  had  been  paid  as  sub- 
stitutes to  come  into  the  army.  The  veterans 
had  the  highest  respect  for  three  classes  of 
men — Americans,  Irish  and  German,  but  to 
hear  them  talk  of  Coffee  Boilers,  you  would 
suppose  that  they  were  of  an  entirely  distinct 
race,  though  probably  most  of  them  had  one 
or  the  other  of  the  three  favored  origins. 
No  veteran,  however,  would  have  admitted 
that  a  Coffee  Boiler  could  be  either  American, 
Irish  or  German.  Henry  brought  back  story 
after  story  of  the  absolute  glee  with  which 
the  seasoned  men  saw  shells  scattering  groups 
of  Coffee  Boilers,  of  the  refusal  of  surgeons 
to  aid  one  of  this  group  when  they  found  he 
had  inflicted  a  self -in  jury,  as  sometimes  hap- 

[63] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

pened,  or  of  the  way,  when  one  of  them  had 
turned  tail,  all  the  veterans  in  line  would 
combine  to  drive  him  back. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  heart  was  sick  again  and 
again  as  he  listened  to  what  he  felt  was  the 
just  criticism  by  these  brave  fellows  of  the 
ruthless  warfare  which  must  replace  men  of 
such  sterling  worth  and  sense  by  so  many 
that  were  venal  and  contemptible. 

As  the  army  worked  its  way  south  the 
dissatisfaction  of  the  men  grew.  They  felt 
that  at  more  than  one  point  Lee  had  been  in 
their  hands  if  the  matter  had  been  prop- 
erly pushed.  There  were  delays  that  they 
violently  cursed — cursed  even  to  the  face 
of  officers  frequently,  for  they  were  a  tribe 
whose  illusions  about  officers  had  been  dis- 
pelled. They  obeyed  them,  yes;  that  was 
necessary.  But  they  looked  them  through 
and  through.  There  was  not  one  of  them 
that  would  not  have  told  Grant  himself  what 
he  thought  of  him  if  it  had  come  in  his  way. 

Yet  nothing  was  more  encouraging  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  than  Henry's  reports  of  how  Grant, 
in  spite  of  what  the  men  felt  of  his  senseless 
wasting  of  their  force,  grew  on  them.  Grad- 
ually grew  the  conviction  that  as  he  had  sent 
word  to  Mr.  Lincoln  at  the  beginning  of  the 

[64] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

campaign,  Grant  was  not  going  to  turn  back, 
and  it  won  these  men.  For  the  first  time, 
they  told  themselves  grimly  around  the  camp 
fires,  Lee  was  no  longer  commander  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac.  It  was  noticeable  that 
before  they  reached  the  James,  they  were 
singing — and  singing  heartily:  "Ulysses 
Leads  the  Van."  And  the  exultation  of  the 
groups  around  the  camp  fires  to  whom  the 
Camp  Walkers  brought  the  news  that  Lee  for 
some  four  days  did  not  know  where  Grant 
was — which  was  true — well,  for  that  word 
they  would  have  been  willing  to  die  on  the 
spot.  But  to  lose  that  advantage,  not  to  be 
in  Petersburg  and  Richmond  as  every  man 
felt  that  they  might  have  been  if  the  thing 
had  been  pushed  that  was  one  of  the  old 
disgusting  failures,  a  failure  over  which 
the  President  groaned  as  bitterly  as  they 
did. 

It  was  not  until  the  middle  of  July  that 
Henry  could  bring  back  to  the  President 
any  news  that  stirred  to  hope.  The  army 
was  camping  around  Petersburg,  bitterly 
cursing  its  luck,  suffering  from  the  heat  and 
the  fever,  utterly  disgusted  with  the  idea  that 
they  were  in  for  what  they  believed  was  go- 
ing to  be  a  long  siege.    Henry,  however,  did 

[65] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

not  believe  it  was  to  be  long.  An  exciting 
new  secret  movement  was  on  hand,  one  which 
he  believed  would  end  the  war.  This  was 
the  tremendous  mine  which  in  July  of  1864* 
was  laid  under  a  portion  of  the  Confederate 
defense. 

To  the  boy  it  was  an  amazing  thing  that 
men  should  come  and  go,  carrying  out  earth 
and  carrying  in  timber  and  explosives  under 
the  very  feet  of  the  enemy.  He  told  the 
President  he  had  even  heard  the  voices  of  the 
Confederates  over  his  head  when  he  had  been 
allowed  as  a  special  privilege  to  visit  the  gal- 
leries. The  thing  could  not  fail.  There 
would  be  one  vast  upheaval ;  the  Union  troops 
would  pour  in  on  the  surprised  Confederates, 
Petersburg  would  fall,  and  there  would  be 
an  open  road  to  Richmond. 

But  the  Petersburg  mine  was  only  another 
of  those  costly  miscarriages  that  had  dis- 
tinguished the  Union  warfare  in  Virginia  for 
over  three  years.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  hear 
much  of  what  happened — many  stories  be- 
sides that  of  Henry  Wing,  though  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  any  was  more  vivid,  more  provocative  of 
indignation  and  depression. 

Henry  had  awaited  the  hour  of  the  explo- 
sion with  impatience ;  he  was  so  sure  it  was  to 

[66] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

be  a  grand  success.  And  what  news  to  send 
after  weeks  of  stories  of  half  victories,  or  of 
victories  almost  worse  than  defeat,  to  be  able 
to  report  one  grand,  overpowering,  unex- 
pected stroke ! 

Long  before  dawn  of  the  morning  fixed, 
July  thirtieth,  he  had  ridden  to  a  knoll  over- 
looking Petersburg,  the  knoll  where  Grant 
and  Meade  with  their  staffs  had  rendezvoused. 
He  had  been  greatly  excited  there  by  the  ex- 
altation that  he  read  in  the  faces  of  the  men. 
Even  Grant  himself  seemed  stirred.  They 
were  all  so  sure  this  time.  There  could  be 
no  failure,  everybody  felt.  Again  and  again 
every  movement  had  been  rehearsed.  It  had 
been  like  the  preparation  for  a  vast  pageant, 
only  here  the  death  and  destruction  were  to 
be  realities,  not  pretenses. 

The  moment  set  for  the  firing  of  the 
fuse,  which  was  to  begin  the  terrific  opening 
act,  was  3:15  a.m.  Henry,  watch  in  hand, 
breathless,  like  the  company  near  him, 
waited  for  the  great  moment.  It  did  not 
come.  Three-fifteen  came  and  went.  Three- 
thirty — four  a.m.,  and  as  the  minutes  passed, 
anxiety,  consternation,  despair,  wrath,  seized 
the  little  group.  They  were  helpless.  No 
move  could  be  made  without  danger  of  de- 

[67] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

stroying  everything,  until  they  knew  what 
had  happened,  what  was  delaying. 

Then  came  an  aide,  with  news  that  the  fuse 
had  gone  out.  There  had  been  volunteers 
to  go  in  and  examine  it.  A  new  attempt 
was  making.  But  an  hour  had  passed,  and 
daylight  was  on  them  before  the  explosion 
planned  came.  It  was  an  awful  upheaval — 
earth,  rocks  and  men  were  thrown  high  into 
the  air  over  a  length  of  half  a  mile,  leaving 
a  crater  like  the  yawning  mouth  of  a  great 
volcano. 

The  explosion  had  come.  Now  for  the 
attack.  The  troops  were  immediately  to 
rush  in,  but  they  did  not  rush.  There  was 
a  long  silence.  Through  their  glasses  the 
watching  party  saw  the  Confederates  rally- 
ing to  their  breastworks — but  where  were  the 
Union  troops?  Henry  Wing,  on  his  horse 
close  to  the  Lieutenant  General  of  the  Army, 
heard  him  muttering  to  himself :  "Why  don't 
the  boys  go  in  ?  Why  don't  the  boys  go  in  ?" 
And  then,  when  the  minutes  passed  and  they 
did  not  go  in,  when  he  saw  the  enemy  rally- 
ing, he  wheeled  his  horse  and  started  for  the 
scene,  Henry  Wing  at  his  heels. 

The  story  of  what  Wing  saw  on  that  wild 
ride  he  told  until  his  death.    He  believed  that 

[68] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

his  own  eyes  had  found  out  why  the  Peters- 
burg mine  failed;  for  reaching  the  scene  of 
attack  and  leaving  his  horse  to  reconnoiter, 
he  had  suddenly  come  upon  a  man  stretched 
prostrate  on  the  ground  in  a  drunken  stupor. 
It  was  the  officer  who  was  to  have  led  the 
charge !  The  boys  had  not  gone  in  because 
their  commanding  officer  was  drunk.  It  was 
this  story  with  all  its  details  that  he  told  the 
President,  adding  with  boyish  generosity: 
"He  was  one  of  the  best  officers  in  the  army, 
Mr.  Lincoln.  I  never  saw  him  intoxicated. 
He  had  taken  a  bracer  for  the  morning's 
work,  then  another,  and  another."  And  the 
President,  his  head  buried  in  his  hands,  had 
groaned:  "Oh,  Henry,  why  do  men  get 
drunk  just  when  they  ought  not  to?" 

The  story  of  the  Petersburg  mine,  its 
grandiose  preparation,  the  confidence  of 
those  who  were  in  the  secret  that  it  was  to  be 
the  death  blow  to  the  Confederacy,  its  failure 
through  unforgivable  bungling  fed  the  anger 
of  the  North.  It  was  madness  to  go  on  sacri- 
ficing men;  let  the  South  go;  give  her  back 
her  slaves;  let  us  have  peace — peace  at  any 
price. 

Politicians  worked  with  energy  on  fagged, 
revolting   men    and   women.     They    offered 

[69] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

them  McClellan  and  "the  cessation  of  hostili- 
ties"— Fremont,  and  it  was  not  too  sure 
what;  no  more  of  Lincoln  at  least.  The 
strong  and  hostile  winds  of  opinion  which 
had  been  blowing  now  for  weeks  became  by 
August  furious,  biting  gales,  converging  to 
one  point — the  President.  He  lived  in  a 
whirlwind  of  opposition,  a  man  without  a 
friend,  his  opponents  confident,  contemptu- 
ous; Congress  sneering  and  hindering;  in- 
trigue in  his  cabinet,  dismay  in  his  party. 
Even  his  best  and  oldest  friends  came  to  tell 
him  in  solemn  tones  that  his  defeat  was  cer- 
tain unless  he  should  compromise — delay  a 
draft,  consider  peace  overtures,  something 
to  soothe  the  country's  agony  until  after 
election. 

"Deceive  as  to  my  intention?"  he  retorted, 
scornfully  refusing. 

Lincoln's  deepest  concern  in  August  of 
1864  was  not  civilian  and  official  opposition, 
however  strong  and  bitter  it  might  be.  He 
was  more  and  more  concerned  with  the  army's 
view  of  things. 

"Henry,"  he  said  in  one  of  their  long  night 
talks  in  this  dreary  period,  "  I  would  rather 
be  defeated  with  the  soldier  vote  behind  me 
than  to  be  elected  without  it." 

[70] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

"You  will  have  it,  Mr.  Lincoln.  You  will 
have  it,"  was  his  repeated  insistence.  "They'll 
vote  as  they  shoot,"  and  his  close  association 
with  the  soldiers  only  intensified  this  faith. 

What  he  had  become  convinced  of  was  that 
the  veterans  were  set  on  finishing  their  job, 
and  not  at  all  concerned  with  politics.  Their 
pride  as  soldiers  was  stirred.  There  was  not 
one  of  them  but  realized  that  Lee  was  in  their 
grip.  They  never  would  let  him  loose  now. 
They  might  love  McClellan — most  of  them 
did ;  but  he  had  not  taught  them  to  fight ;  it 
was  Grant  had  done  that.  Grant  had  led 
them  on,  but  never  back.  And  who  had 
given  them  Grant?  Why,  Lincoln.  And 
who  was  backing  Grant,  even  at  the  risk  of 
his  defeat  in  the  approaching  election?  Lin- 
coln.    They  would  vote  as  they  shot. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  listening  and  carefully 
balancing  what  the  boy  was  reporting  from 
the  army  with  what  he  was  hearing  from 
other  quarters,  met  his  confident  assurances 
by  saying  grimly  one  night:  "All  right, 
Henry;  but  if  they  turn  their  backs  to  the 
fire  and  get  burned  they  will  have  to  sit  on 
the  blister." 

They  did  not  turn  their  backs  to  the  fire 
that  November.     At  the  primitive  polls  set 

[71] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

up  for  them  in  the  camps — a  tent;  a  table 
under  a  tree;  the  end  of  an  ambulance — 
three-quarters  of  the  soldiers  in  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  dropped  votes  for  Abraham 
Lincoln  into  ballot  boxes  improvised  from 
cartridge  or  cracker  cases,  and  in  one  case 
at  least  from  an  old  pork  barrel. 

Henry  Wing  saw  the  man  whom  he  had 
come  to  so  trust  and  honor  freed  from  his 
burden  of  uncertainty  about  the  fate  of  the 
Union.  He  saw  that  his  thoughts  were  no 
longer  with  armies;  they  were  already  busy 
with  the  future,  planning  how  order  could  be 
restored,  how  every  one,  North  and  South, 
could  be  put  at  some  peaceful  occupation.  It 
seemed  sometimes  to  Henry  as  if  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's plans  for  reconstruction  took  in  every 
acquaintanceship  that  had  been  dislocated  by 
the  war. 

"Henry,"  he  asked  the  boy,  "what  are  you 
going  to  do  when  the  war  is  over?" 

"Well,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  replied  young  Wing, 
"I  think  I  will  go  on  with  the  law.  I  have 
an  idea  that  I  could  get  elected  to  Congress — 
think  I  would  like  that." 

"Don't  begin  on  Congress  unless  you  go 
on  with  it,  Henry,"  he  said.  "One  term 
doesn't  mean  much.     It  takes  that  long  to 

[72] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

start,  learn  the  ways,  get  acquainted  with 
the  men.  I  had  only  one  term;  I  know  how 
it  is.  When  you  get  down  here  you  must 
remember  that  you  have  to  prove  yourself  to 
those  that  have  been  here  a  long  time.  It  is 
pretty  hard  on  a  newcomer.  No,  I  wouldn't 
go  in  for  Congress,  Henry,  unless  I  was  sure 
I  was  going  to  stick  to  it  long  enough  to  make 
it  amount  to  something." 

The  advice  stuck  in  Henry  Wing's  mind. 
What  could  he  do?  It  must  be  something 
that  would  help  Mr.  Lincoln.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
he  told  himself,  was  in  for  trouble  when  the 
war  was  over.  There  were  some  strong  fel- 
lows on  the  Hill  and  in  the  country  who  did 
not  believe  in  his  idea  of  letting  the  South 
down  easy.  They  sneered  at  the  words  of 
mercy  in  the  President's  talk,  public  and 
private.  They  were  for  punishment,  hang- 
ing, outlawing;  protectorates  must  be  estab- 
lished.    Lincoln  was  talking  treason. 

Now  Henry  was  with  the  President.  He 
had  inherited  none  of  Ebenezer  Wing's  capa- 
city for  righteous  hatred.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
right ;  they  should  let  them  down  easy.  But 
how  could  he  help? 

He  found  a  way  to  his  liking  in  the  winter 
of  1864-65.     After  the  army  settled  down 

[73] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

for  the  winter  and  there  was  nothing  excit- 
ing doing,  Horace  Greeley  had  called  him 
back  to  New  York.  Close  to  the  great  editor 
and  his  staff,  he  saw  his  course ;  he  would  be- 
come an  editor,  the  editor  of  a  paper  of  his 
own,  and  it  should  be  in  Connecticut.  There 
were  too  many  men  in  that  state  who  hated 
the  man  he  loved.  He  would  become  his 
armor-bearer  there,  fight  his  battles. 

The  paper  he  chose  and  bought  was  a 
weekly  sheet,  seasoned  by  forty  years  of  ex- 
perience, the  Litchfield  Enquirer.  But  he 
was  in  no  hurry  to  take  hold  of  his  possession. 
He  wanted  to  see  with  his  own  eyes  the  end 
of  the  war;  and  when  in  March  it  became 
certain  that  that  end  was  near  he  hurried 
back  to  his  old  post  at  Grant's  headquarters, 
then  at  City  Point  on  the  James  River.  He 
had  been  there  only  a  few  days  when  the 
President  came  down  for  a  visit. 

If  Henry  Wing  had  any  idea  that  Mr. 
Lincoln's  friendship  had  cooled  in  these 
months  of  absence,  the  warm  welcome  given 
him  at  their  first  accidental  meeting  dispelled 
it.  Hurrying  out  from  the  telegraph  office, 
he  had  almost  collided  with  the  presidential 
party.  Mr.  Lincoln,  spying  him,  called  out 
an  immediate  hearty  greeting. 

[7*] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

"We  must  have  a  talk,"  he  said,  and  put- 
ting his  arm  around  the  boy's  shoulder,  he 
walked  him  away  from  the  company,  down 
the  road  following  the  river.  "Too  many 
people  here,"  Mr.  Lincoln  said;  "let  us  get 
into  that  boat."  And  the  President  himself 
laying  hold  of  the  rope  that  tethered  a  little 
skiff  floating  out  in  the  stream,  drew  it  to 
shore  and,  directing  Henry  to  seat  himself  in 
the  stern,  crawled  in  after  him;  then,  drop- 
ping the  rope,  he  allowed  the  boat  to  drift  as 
far  as  it  would,  far  enough  for  their  talk  to 
be  entirely  quiet. 

"And  now,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  drawing  up 
his  knees  so  they  almost  touched  his  chin, 
and  clasping  them  with  his  long  arms,  "tell 
me  about  things.  What  have  you  been 
doing?" 

And  Henry  told  him  of  his  winter,  with 
many  anecdotes  of  Greeley,  his  erratic  chief, 
told  him  of  the  purchase  of  the  Litchfield  En- 
quirer and  of  his  determination  to  go  back 
there  and  support  him  in  the  fight  for  a  mer- 
ciful reconstruction.  The  talk  ran  on  over 
the  many  happenings  since  their  last  meeting, 
and  came  to  the  situation  of  the  moment. 

"The  war  is  just  about  over,"  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  as  he  picked  up  the  rope  to  pull  their 

[75] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

skiff  back  to  shore.  "Sherman  is  closing  on 
Lee  from  the  south.  It  will  be  only  a  few 
days  now.  I  don't  want  our  armies  to  crush 
him.  I  want  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  to 
have  the  satisfaction  of  capturing  General 
Lee;  it  is  due  them.  For  four  years  they 
have  been  at  this  tiling.  I  want  them  to  end 
it." 

The  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  to  have  that 
satisfaction,  and  Henry  Wing  was  to  be  in 
at  the  finish,  a  consummation  which  he  cun- 
ningly and  completely  planned.  As  soon  as 
Lee's  army  was  known  to  be  in  retreat  Sheri- 
dan with  his  cavalry  attempted  a  detour 
around  it,  and  Henry  Wing  went  along.  As 
they  were  approaching  Appomattox,  Gor- 
don's cavalry  came  dashing  down  a  slope 
toward  the  Union  line  when  suddenly,  in  full 
view  of  both  forces,  a  white  flag  fluttered  to 
the  breeze. 

There  was  an  immediate  halt.  Horses 
were  pulled  up  in  their  tracks,  and  the 
startled  troops  and  their  commanders 
waited.  Not  Henry  Wing.  He  dashed  for 
headquarters.  With  his  usual  foresight  he 
had  arranged  with  a  friendly  member  of 
Grant's  staff  that  if  Lee  did  surrender,  as  was 
expected,  this  man,  as  soon  as  it  was  certain, 
[76] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

should  come  out  from  the  house  where  they 
were  quartered,  take  off  his  hat  and  wipe 
his  forehead  three  times  with  a  handker- 
chief. There  were  other  signals  for  other 
contingencies. 

Henry  rode  into  the  groups,  blue  and  gray, 
gathered  about  the  house  where  the  two  great 
chiefs  were  in  council  and,  dismounting,  stood 
in  apparent  unconcern,  though  really  in- 
tensely alert. 

A  man  opened  the  door,  came  out,  took 
off  his  hat  and  wiped  his  forehead  three  times 
with  a  handkerchief. 

Henry  Wing  was  in  his  saddle  on  the  in- 
stant, dashing  off  with  his  news,  his  one  object 
in  life  to  beat  the  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Herald. 

It  was  his  last  dispatch.  The  war  was 
over.  He  hurried  at  once  to  Litchfield  to 
take  possession  of  the  Enquirer.  He  worked 
quickly,  for  if  one  looks  over  a  file  of  the 
journal  preserved  in  the  town's  public 
library,  he  will  find  that  the  issue  of  the  13th 
of  April,  1865,  bears  the  valedictory  of  its 
retiring  editor  and  bespeaks  for  its  new 
owners,  Wing  and  Shumway,  the  "same  gen- 
erous patronage  and  kind  ways  that  have 
been  afforded  us." 

[77] 


A  REPORTER  FOR  LINCOLN 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  the  15th  of  April 
that  Henry  Wing  sat  down  at  his  desk  to 
write  his  salutatory,  a  happy,  confident 
youth,  doing  the  thing  that  he  wanted  to  do, 
following  a  leader  in  whom  he  believed. 

He  was  sitting  with  a  tender  smile  on  his 
lips, — he  was  going  to  write  something  of 
which  his  mother  would  be  proud  and  which 
his  father  would  have  to  accept. 

As  he  put  his  pen  to  paper  the  door  opened 
and  a  boy  came  in,  dropping  a  telegram  on 
his  desk.     He  opened  it  and  read : 

Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States,  assassinated  last  night  in  Ford's 
Theater,  Washington,  died  this  morning  at 
twenty-two  minutes  past  seven. 


[78] 


